ABSTRACT
Microplastics (MP) are one of the most significant environmental threats today because they are omnipresent and show a high tendency to interact with the ecosystem, endangering plant and animal lives. Plastic fragments enter the aquatic environment where they can last for hundreds or thousands of years, during which they are broken down by photochemical and mechanical processes into MP (<5 mm) and nanoplastics (<1 μm). Analysis of MP showed that textile fibres are the most frequent source, of which polyester (PES) is the most common. PES microfibres enter the environment as a result of textile and industrial wastewater, household laundry, drying methods, etc. MP are released into the environment not only during the manufacturing processes, but also due to the everyday usage of the material, the so-called ageing phenomenon. Ageing is a term used in polymer science when polymer properties change with time. Physical ageing is the most common type of ageing, corresponding to changes in polymer composition and polymer structure. Chemical ageing, on the contrary, occurs as a result of reactions with outside agents such as water and ultraviolet (UV) rays.
The generation of MP and its intense release from PES textiles have become major topics of research in the field of textile chemistry. Accordingly, two questions are discussed in this chapter: How does artificial ageing affect the structure of PES textiles, and what happens to PES textiles during the process of artificial ageing? It is well known that light tends to destroy dyes and change the original colour of fabrics, resulting in fading. Therefore, in this study, PES fabrics are subjected to artificially accelerated ageing simulation in Xenotest 440 for up to 85 hours according to ISO 105-B04:1994 by weathering under simultaneous exposure to light and water. The aged PES fabrics are compared to the untreated fabric to characterize the changes in the structure of the fabric after exposure to light and to determine whether changes have occurred at the molecular level in the fabrics.
