Introduction

The textile industry is one of the leading industries in India, and the wastewater
generated in the industrial process is treated, and residue left often in the treatment
plant is of major concern and poses a risk to the Environment. The textile industry is
an excellent example of the circular economy concept, promoting a zero liquid
discharge process. However, wastewater treatment generates sludge and poses a risk
to the Environment if not disposed of sustainably. Sludge generation is due to
different treatment processes like chemical coagulation, flocculation, and lime-soda
treatment (Balasubramanian et al., 2006). It contains toxic metals, residual dyes that
are carcinogenic, and hazardous organic chemicals used during textile manufacturing
processes (Herek et al., 2012). The conventional disposal techniques adopted in India
are landfilling, dumping in the ocean, and composting (Anwar et al., 2018). With the
growing concern of reducing environmental pollution, strict regulations have been
imposed to dispose of solid and liquid wastes properly from the industry and reduce
CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. One of the oldest disposal techniques is entrapping
waste in a cement concrete matrix. A study discussed lime sludge used to replace
cement in concrete (Acharya and Patro, 2016, Zhan and Poon, 2015). Textile sludge
was evaluated for highway stabilizing material post calcination process (Gonzaga de
Oliveira et al., 2020) and investigated as a substitute for fine aggregate in cement
mortars and strength reduced (Goyal et al., 2019). However, the textile sludge
generation rate is, on average, 10 tons per day, can vary according to the industry
capacity. Tons of textile sludge were piled up inside the industry for days and might
never reach landfills that would incur transportation costs. Even when transported to
landfills, textile sludge would have no disposal value. The sludge has potential
minerals and needs a sustainable disposal method that promotes the circular economy
concept. Incineration of Textile dyeing sludge is not common, and a few Co-
combustion studies investigated blending with waste materials. Co-combustion of
Textile dye sludge with coal, cattle manure (Zhang et al., 2020), waste tea (Cai et al.,
2019), and microalgae have drawbacks due to the high ash content and inorganic
nature of textile sludge (Sun et al., 2019). Cleaner application with minimum pre-
processing cost and less environmental risk is the prerequisite for waste material
disposal by incineration method.

Cement used for construction is, in fact, the most consumed product on the earth next
to water (Acharya and Patro, 2016). The manufacturing process of cement consumes
fossil fuel minerals like limestone. One of the sustainable techniques for waste
utilization is the Co-processing of waste in cement kilns (Baidya et al., 2016). Several
types of research have found suitable alternatives for fuels and raw materials for the
cement manufacturing process (Stafford et al., 2015). Co-processing is a developing
industrial technique in India, whereas well an established technique in European
countries (Lee et al., 2021). Co-processing in the cement industry can be defined as
using waste materials as an alternative for raw materials and fuels, depending on the
characteristic material properties of the waste (Mikulčić et al., 2016). With climate
change focusing on today’s world, the co-processing technique could pave the way
for sustainability and waste management. Co-processing is adopted both in the cement
and steel industry (Bogush et al., 2020). Nevertheless, the cement industry has the
edge over the steel industry because of the requirement of the cement manufacturing
process, which is more coherent and straightforward for utilizing waste as a resource
in cement kilns.
Given the current scenario, the raw material requirements like limestone, marl, and
clay for cement manufacturing might increase, and partially substituting them with
potential waste materials like textile sludge is a viable solution (Costa and Ribeiro,
2020, Hassaan, 2001, Zhang et al., 2014). In this present study, the potential of textile
sludge as an alternative raw material for the cement manufacturing process was
investigated by textile sludge to calcination temperatures under different heating rates.
Investigation of raw meal calcination kinetics and comparing with textile lime sludge
thermal degradation is the novelty of the present study conducted. Multi-linear
regression was performed through response surface methodology to develop
prediction models for TGA mass loss. Factors influencing significantly to calcination
were derived using ANOVA. The artificial neural network model was developed and
optimized for textile sludge and cement raw meal thermal degradation behavior. Raw
meal collected from cement factory was also investigated and compared with textile
sludge (Noor ul and Ali, 2011). As the future scope, Life cycle assessment of textile
sludge can be an effective tool to assess environmental impact. Blending fossil fuel to
textile sludge and studying the kinetics could further improve thermal stability.

Conclusion
The combustion thermal kinetics was carried out for Textile Sludge and Raw meal collected cement
industry to calcination temperatures. The average activation energy was computed from FOW for
calcination of textile sludge (160 kJ/mol) & for the raw meal (230 kJ/mol), respectively. High thermally
stable profile of textile sludge as cement raw meal indicated suitability as alternative raw material.
XRD analysis revealed the formation of preliminary Bogue’s compounds in textile sludge even at
1100 °C. Alkalis present in the textile sludge were 2.73% Na2O, 0.38%
O may also reduce SO emissions from fuel present in the kiln. TGA-FTIR indicated that the only
prominent gas evolved is CO2, which is majorly due to the calcination process. Response surface
methodology confirmed that mass loss had a quadratic relationship with heating rate and
temperature. An optimized Neural network model was developed to predict textile sludge and raw
meal thermal degradation behavior. Multilayer perception with three neurons proved to be the best
fit for prediction.