Publicação
Developing high-performance recycled nonwoven structures for safety footwear: a focus on perforation resistance
| Resumo: | There are more than 23 billion pairs of footwear manufactured annually worldwide , resulting in a massive amount of waste generated from the residues produced during and after the manufacturing process, pre-consumer/post-industrial and post-consumer waste, respectively. This amount of footwear waste has a significantly negative impact on the environment and human health, as more than 22 billion shoes are discarded in landfills yearly. Large amounts of waste decomposing in landfills contribute to environmental pollution, contaminating groundwater and releasing greenhouse gases, which also impact public health. Thus, it becomes urgent to recycle footwear to generate new raw material, entering into the concept of circular economy. AMF Safety Shoes Company, a safety footwear production industry in Portugal, produces various types of waste, such as polyester. In this work, the polyester waste, which comes from the cutting of anti-perforation insoles, was reused to produce new anti-perforation structures to be incorporated back into the company, thus creating a closed-loop circular economy. Firstly, nonwovens were produced by incorporating polyester waste and commercially recycled polyester in an 80:20 ratio, using the needle-punching technique. To increase the perforation resistance behaviour of the nonwoven, two high-performance fabrics were incorporated: basalt and aramid fiber fabric. These structures were manufactured by layers, intertwining nonwovens with layers of basalt/aramid fiber fabric, by needlepunching. Several parameters were studied to improve the perforation resistance of the structures: number of passes in the needle-punching process; number of basalt/aramid fiber fabric layers; nonwoven thickness; layer orientation angle; needling entry angle, compression molding technique. The resulting structures are eligible for certification (>1100N) and achieved a maximum perforation resistance of 1283N. In conclusion, this study embodies the principles of a closed-loop circular economy, repurposing waste (polyester) to create a new product (insoles), which is then incorporated into safety footwear. |
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| Autores principais: | Alves, Diana Isabel Sousa |
| Outros Autores: | Guimarães, Renato Filipe Costa Rodrigues; Fangueiro, Raúl; Ferreira, Diana P. |
| Assunto: | Circular economy Footwear waste Nonwoven structures Perforation resistance Recycling |
| Ano: | 2025 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | outro |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso aberto |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade do Minho |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho |
| Resumo: | There are more than 23 billion pairs of footwear manufactured annually worldwide , resulting in a massive amount of waste generated from the residues produced during and after the manufacturing process, pre-consumer/post-industrial and post-consumer waste, respectively. This amount of footwear waste has a significantly negative impact on the environment and human health, as more than 22 billion shoes are discarded in landfills yearly. Large amounts of waste decomposing in landfills contribute to environmental pollution, contaminating groundwater and releasing greenhouse gases, which also impact public health. Thus, it becomes urgent to recycle footwear to generate new raw material, entering into the concept of circular economy. AMF Safety Shoes Company, a safety footwear production industry in Portugal, produces various types of waste, such as polyester. In this work, the polyester waste, which comes from the cutting of anti-perforation insoles, was reused to produce new anti-perforation structures to be incorporated back into the company, thus creating a closed-loop circular economy. Firstly, nonwovens were produced by incorporating polyester waste and commercially recycled polyester in an 80:20 ratio, using the needle-punching technique. To increase the perforation resistance behaviour of the nonwoven, two high-performance fabrics were incorporated: basalt and aramid fiber fabric. These structures were manufactured by layers, intertwining nonwovens with layers of basalt/aramid fiber fabric, by needlepunching. Several parameters were studied to improve the perforation resistance of the structures: number of passes in the needle-punching process; number of basalt/aramid fiber fabric layers; nonwoven thickness; layer orientation angle; needling entry angle, compression molding technique. The resulting structures are eligible for certification (>1100N) and achieved a maximum perforation resistance of 1283N. In conclusion, this study embodies the principles of a closed-loop circular economy, repurposing waste (polyester) to create a new product (insoles), which is then incorporated into safety footwear. |
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