Basis for Developing a Methodology to Estimate Fluorinated GHG Emissions from the Fluorinated Treatment of Textile, Carpet, Leather, and Paper

The textile, carpet, leather, and paper manufacturing industries are among sectors for which no guidance is available in the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventories. Yet, fluorochemical (FC)-based treatment processes of textile, carpet, leather, and paper substrates could represent a significant source of emissions of high Global Warming Potential (GWP) gases, due to the large volume of substrates treated and the sheer size and global nature of the industry. Although several international and national reports refer to the possible off-gas emissions of fluorochemicals into the atmosphere during the treatment of textile, carpet, leather, and paper, no emission factors are available in the open literature to estimate GHG emissions from such processes. FC-based treatment is used to enhance the hydrophobicity, increase the stain resistance, mechanical strength, or dyeing ability of the substrates, and produce wrinkle-free materials. FC-based treatment processes are prevalently based on wet chemistry, including the pad-dry-cure method among others, but plasma-based treatment using CF4, C2F6, CHF3, SF6, and other FC gases is emerging as an efficient technology used to treat, etch, or deposit polymers on the substrates’ surface. As part of the 2019 Refinement of the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventories, a specialist expert team has been working for the last two years on establishing methods for reporting GHG emissions from FC-based processes used for the treatment of textile, carpet, leather, and paper. This paper will give an overview of this work, proposing a three-tiered methodological framework. A basis for future methodological development, and preliminary guidance about how to measure emissions factors and develop defaults for this sector will also be provided.
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