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Wet Processing Engineering is one of the major streams in Textile Engineering or Textile manufacturing which refers to the engineering of textile chemical processes and associated applied science.[1] The other three streams in textile engineering are yarn engineering, fabric engineering, and apparel engineering. The processes of this stream are involved or carried out in an aqueous stage. Hence, it is called a wet process which usually covers pre-treatment, dyeing, printing, and finishing.[2]
The wet process is usually done in the manufactured assembly of interlacing fibers, filaments and yarns, having a substantial surface (planar) area in relation to its thickness, and adequate mechanical strength to give it a cohesive structure. In other words, the wet process is done on manufactured fiber, yarn and fabric.
All of these stages require an aqueous medium which is created by water. A massive amount of water is required in these processes per day. It is estimated that, on an average, almost 50–100 liters of water is used to process only 1 kilogram of textile goods, depending on the process engineering and applications.[3] Water can be of various qualities and attributes. Not all water can be used in the textile processes; it must have some certain properties, quality, color and attributes of being used. This is the reason why water is a prime concern in wet processing engineering.[4]