Location: IN - India
This inventory dataset represents the process of finishing 1 kg of cotton fabric in India through a specialised technique called mercierisation.
This activity is modelled as a service, so no inputs of Fabric are considered.
Mercerisation is a special type of finising which involves treatment of cotton yarn or fabric to increase its luster and affinity for dyes. The material is immersed under tension in a cold sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) solution in warp or skein form or in the piece, and is later neutralized in acid. The process causes a permanent swelling of the fiber and thus increases its lustre. It is the process of treatment of cellulosic material with cold or hot caustic conditions under specific conditions to improve its appearance and physical as well as chemical properties.

The mercerizing involves these three subsequent steps, 1. Impregnation of the material in relaxed state, by cold caustic solution of required strength and wettability. 2. Stretching while the material is still impregnated in the caustic solution. 3. Washing off the caustic soda from the material while keeping the material still in the stretched state.

we deemed the impact of machinery to be minimum therefore we deliberately excluded machinery from the dataset
Undefined unit processes (UPRs) are the unlinked, multi-product activity datasets that form the basis for all of the system models available in the ecoinvent database. This is the way the datasets are obtained and entered into the database by the data providers. These activity datasets are useful for investigating the environmental impacts of a specific activity (gate-to-gate), without regard to its upstream or downstream impacts.