The textile world is grappling with the problem of easy transition to organic cotton without losing yields. It has also been attempting to achieve equivalent feel, solidity, crock and wash fastness like reactive printing, with pigment system without much success. Zydex Industries Pvt Ltd has innovated complete solutions for both and made it technically and commercially viable.

Sustainability as a goal demands reduction in carbon footprint, eliminating water and air pollution and minimising the consumption of our limited resources. The use of greener energy and sustainable raw materials are the key future changes needed for the textile industry.

It is estimated that 20,000 litres of water is used to grow 1 kg of cotton, and an additional 200 litres of water is used in processing 1 kg of cotton. Chemical fertilisers, chemical pesticides and mechanisation has led to lowering of organic carbon, killing of soil biology and reduced fertility of the soil.

The Zydex team, led by Dr. Ajay Ranka, has developed a complete product line of bio fertilisers and foliar spray using natural botanical oils which are ‘Organic Certified’. This new protocol is called ‘Prakalp Sanjivani’. It allows one crop transition from chemical to bio farming with similar or higher yields, consistently in hundreds of farms in India. The cost of cultivation in all farms have been profit positive. Percentage profitability may vary from field to field. Typically, 5 to 25 per cent increase in yields have been observed in most of the cases.

The plants had improved immunity, attracted less diseases and attack of pests. The neem oil which is micro-encapsulated—a newer technology of Zytonic Neem Active—has been very successful in controlling the pests, particularly pink ball worm and white flies. It also improved greenery and made the leaves soft.

With abiotic stress a new technology of Zytonic Suraksha was used as foliar spray every 15 days to reduce water and, heat stress. Improved growth and greenery were observed compared to the chemical cotton fields.

The key innovation of Zytonic bio fertilisers based on mycorrhiza, NPK consortia, zinc etc was to ensure that farm soils become soft and porous, with the first application of water/rains. This led to a significantly large root zone and a denser hyphae network. This resulted in 40-50 per cent water reduction, saving 8,000 to 10,000 litres of water per kg of cotton produce.

These fields can continue using the Prakalp Sanjivani for other crops and the farm can be certified for organic cotton production in three years. The significant outcome is: this will happen with higher profitability for the farmer and improving the fertility of the soil by a higher biological count and organic carbon.

Reactive equivalent printing technology: Print – Dry – Cure – Finish

Zydex pioneered various innovative solutions for the textile industry starting with non-PVC water-based screen-printing inks and with its continuous effort to innovate for sustainability it has successfully commercialised revolutionary printing solution – Epricon. These innovative products are making inroads in the industry.

Epricon printing solution is based on unique binder – thickener pigment printing system replacing water and energy intensive conventional reactive printing processes, and thus offers a sustainable solution to the industry. 60 to 70 per cent designs with light and medium dark colours can be switched to Epricon process without any compromise on performance. Up to 5 per cent pigment concentration, dry crock of >4 and wet crock of >3/4 is always achieved on rayon, cotton and blends of PV/PC.

The key advancement when Zydex finishing package is used on Epricon is avoiding the stone wash look even after 10 machine wash cycles at 50-degree C. Though the colour value loss can be rated at 3 to 4, it shows a very uniform look. The conventional pigment technologies fail at the 3rd or 4th wash. The hand feel is like reactive and the brilliancy and solidity closer to reactive printing specially in blotches and navy shades. The solidity of pastel colours using black and blue pigments dispersion at 0.05 per cent is excellent.

Based on pigment printing system, Epricon is a dry process with minimal requirement of water, producing results equivalent to reactive printing with increased productivity. Comparative case studies against conventional reactive printing shows that it can save water ~ 75 per cent and energy ~ 55 per cent, while increasing the productivity by ~50 per cent and reduce fabric wastage by ~3 per cent.

Zydex is headquartered in Vadodara, Gujarat, India with office in the US. It currently has a total capacity to produce 60,000-80,000 tons of specialty polymers and chemicals, annually. Of this, 15,000-20,000 tons is dedicated to textiles. The company has grown by 45 per cent in the last two years and is expecting another 30-45 per cent growth in its specialty textile chemicals business in the next two years. The global specialty chemicals market size is estimated at $595 billion, of which global textile chemicals market size is estimated at $23.89 billion in 2021, and it is expected to grow at around 4.0 per cent (CAGR). The specialty chemicals industry size in India is estimated to be around 3-4 per cent of the global market in fiscal 2021; for textiles, it is around $1.8 billion as per the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) reports.

With a vision to be the most preferred high-performance textile processing solution provider globally, driven by eco-innovation aimed at conserving resources, Zydex caters to major textile markets like India, the United States, Europe, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Egypt; and the list is expanding.

In the next 2-3 years, Zydex’s major thrust would be to stabilise and expand its new introductions of Epricon and revamped K2 inks line for garment printing at the global level. On the textile raw material side, Zydex is expanding its reach to farm level and aims to revolutionise the cotton farming practices by eliminating the use of chemical fertilisers and crop care chemicals and improve the cotton yield with less water to make India the largest producer of sustainable and organic cotton.

Zydex will continue to innovate with focus on customised finishing, which are retentive in nature and will be the key in future. Also, waterless dyeing and transfer printing could challenge the conventional dyeing technique in the coming times.

Sustainability as a future direction will demand sustainable raw material and sustainable disposal, while satisfying the consumer needs. Cradle to grave criteria is now being applied to achieve these goals. Important milestones will be hundred per cent recycling of PET-based textile articles. Growing cotton organically with 50 per cent reduction in water consumption had already been achieved and is techno commercially feasible. With Zydex technology, forestry can be made productive and organic using the new generation of bio fertilisers and bio growth enhancers. This will set up the stage of man-made cellulosic fibres (viscose), natural fibres (cotton), and synthetic like PET/nylon as sustainable major inputs.

The focus on bio eliminability of colours, chemicals, polymers, renewable energy, 100 per cent water recycling are the key areas which need to develop techno commercially, as viable and feasible solutions. Lot of progress is happening in this area, and we believe that in the next 10 to 25 years, significant milestones could be achieved, keeping away the harmful chemicals from the supply chain. Future belongs to fashion and comfort factor, which will attract major value addition.