Catalytic strategies for sustainable and efficient textile processing: a review

The textile industry is one of the most resource-intensive industries, using vast amounts of water, energy and chemicals, and producing huge volumes of wastewater and greenhouse gas emissions. Traditional textile processing is energy demanding and involves harsh chemical treatments, which cause serious environmental problems. Catalysis has become an effective way to improve process efficiency, with a reduction of chemical consumption, energy demand and pollutant creation. This review emphasizes the latest breakthroughs in the areas of heterogeneous catalysis, photocatalysis, and advanced oxidation processes for sustainable textile manufacturing in terms of their uses in pretreatment, dying, finishing, and wastewater treatment. It also discusses recent advances in catalyst regeneration, immobilized enzymes, magnetic catalysts, and recyclable catalytic systems that enable circular textile production. Unlike previous evaluations mainly focusing on wastewater treatment, this review gives a holistic assessment of catalytic technologies along the full textile value chain.