Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2018) 133: 257
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2018-12123-x

Regular Article

Quantification of microfibres released during washing of synthetic clothes in real conditions and at lab scale^⋆

¹ Institute for Polymers, Composites and Biomaterials, National Research Council of Italy, Via Campi Flegrei, 34 - 80078, Pozzuoli, Italy
² University of Naples Federico II, Department of Chemical, Materials and Production Engineering, P.le Tecchio 80, 80125, Naples, Italy

^* e-mail: francesca.defalco@ipcb.cnr.it

Received: 26 April 2018
Accepted: 31 May 2018
Published online: 11 July 2018

Abstract

In this work, a systematic study aimed at comparing the amount of microfibres released from synthetic fabrics during washing tests performed by using a household washing machine and a lab scale Gyrowash system, a laboratory simulator of a real washing machine, is reported. The obtained results allow to conclude that the washing tests performed at lab scale are an effective analytical procedure to perform a low-time/low-cost estimation of the microfibre release from synthetic fabrics.