Throughout its ten years of business, the Swiss textile innovator HeiQ has constantly strived for utmost product performance while simultaneously keeping sustainability as its guiding star. At this year’s ITMA Milan exhibition, HeiQ will present seven performance enhanced textile technologies including environmentally-friendly water-repellency, its enhanced dynamic cooling technology and long-lasting odor control as well as the CO2 and water saving dyeing accelerator DYEFAST.
Performance and sustainability are at the heart of HeiQ’s innovation expertise. HeiQ has developed a full range of successful high-performance textile effects in the past decade, which recently led to the recognition of HeiQ as one of the Top 10 McKinsey ETH Venture start-ups of the last decade. In terms of sustainability HeiQ has repeatedly been proven to be one step ahead – with Oilguard HeiQ launched a clean-tech product for beach protection in 2010 and was awarded the Swiss Technology Award and the European Environmental Press Award. In 2012, HeiQ was one of the first to pioneer fluorocarbon-free durable water-repellent (DWR) technologies, and in summer 2015 HeiQ launched the CO2 and water saving dyeing accelerator DYEFAST. HeiQ stands for globally compliant products and a commitment for sustainable chemistry within the standards of Oekotex and bluesign.
At this year’s ITMA, taking place from 12-19 November 2015 in Milan, Italy, HeiQ will present the latest performance enhancements of its core product families and will convey the sustainability of each of its technologies.
Widely adopted fluorine-free water repellent finish BARRIER ECO was one of the first of its kind and offers competing performance and durable results. This technology is bluesign approved and one of the best in its class. HeiQ focuses fully on fluorine-free DWR solutions, a choice supported by research and development investments of CHF 3 million over the next 2 years to push performance results even further. At ITMA, HeiQ will present the performance enhanced version of its sustainable fluorine-free DWR technology, an all-round product applicable to all fiber types. In addition, new formulations specifically developed for cotton and polyester will be launched.
Its dynamic cooling technology, ADAPTIVE, is HeiQ’s most successful technology and has been applied globally to over 300 million consumer products for performance brand partners like Hanes, Champion, New Balance, Skins, Canterbury of New Zealand and Kjus. At ITMA, HeiQ will launch a new ADAPTIVE product version specifically designed for cotton and one for synthetics to further boost the cooling and moisture control performance potential.
HeiQ’s odor control technology PURE will be extended with performance enhanced and optimized products, developed to minimize cost, chemical usage and wastewater for the technical application in padding and exhaust. PURE offers the best durability and odor control performance available on the market while being compliant with global regulatory standards and beating other technology providers on costs. HeiQ provides the full range of testing services and capabilities including technical support and performance testing. PURE-treated textiles keep unpleasant odors at bay, are washed less frequently and help to reduce the environmental footprint of the treated garments.
HeiQ delivers environmentally sound textile effects but also revolutionary processing technologies, such as the recently launched DYEFAST. DYEFAST enables a faster polyester dyeing procedure leading to a better dyed product, 1/3 less energy and 1/3 less water consumption and 1/3 reduced carbon footprint. Process-time savings of 33% is a direct outcome of the utilization of this green technology which has the potential to revolutionize polyester dyeing and save up to 50 million tons of CO2 emissions per year.
At ITMA, HeiQ will unveil the specific details for each of these technologies, from 12-19 November 2015, booth number H8-E105. Additionally, HeiQ’s CTO Prof. Dr. Murray Height will give a deep knowledge presentation about “Water repellency without fluorine – Learning from Nature” at the Textile Colourant and Chemical Leaders Forum on 14 November, held in parallel to the ITMA show.
