• Gerhardts, Anja
• Hussy, Stephan
• Piątkiewicz, Wojciech
• Kogut, Igor
• Polak, Daniel
• Szwast, Maciej

Abstract

The commercial laundry industry is a vastly important yet gravely underestimated business area.In the last decades, the evolving chemical restrictions, sustainability-based regulations, and safetystandards have strongly affected the commercial laundry sector, especially with environmentalconsideration rising in demand, that is, wastewater treatment and recycling. This paper addressesa growing need in cost-effective engineering, as well as the application, of wastewater recyclingtechnologies for commercial laundries. This study started from the manufacturing of polypropylene capillary membranes using a combination of polyetherpolyamide (PEBAX®) and titaniumdioxide nano-sized particles (nano-TiO2) for subsequent “flow coating” modification of membranesurfaces. In the next step, the material characteristics of the polymeric membranes were investigated at lab and pre-industrial scales using scanning electron microscopy/energy-dispersive X-rayspectroscopy, contact angle measurements, and defined filtration experiments. The examinationof the wastewater reuse potential of novel membranes on a pre-industrial scale was carried outin a field study in a commercial laundry. The treated water has been monitored, for example, byconductometry and surface tension measurements. This study defines the reuse potential of laundry wastewater by using modified polymeric membranes, while at the same time evaluatingthe critical parameters of this wastewater recycling process in commercial laundries.

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• surface
• scanning electron microscopy
• experiment