TEX2MAT - Next Level Textile Recycling with Biocatalysts

Abstract

Achieving a circular economy for end-of-life textiles is one of the big challenges in the textile industry. Currently, after disposal, textiles often end up in landfills or in incineration plants. Over the last years, the textile industry exhibited high growth rates and the annual global fibre production is reaching 100 Million t. It also has to be considered that textile products are increasingly becoming more complex, to fulfill special functionality resulting in the use of multi-material textiles. However, these textiles are hard to recycle. The TEX2MAT project is a FFG (Austrian Research Promotion Agency) promoted project conducted by a consortium of 13 research institutions and private businesses that offers a solution. The goal was to develop an innovative process for the material recycling of selected multi-material textile streams. In multiple case studies, pre- and post-consumer cotton/polyester textiles from the Austrian SME sector were investigated to close the material cycle from raw material back to raw material. The case studies used a new approach involving the enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose. This way cotton can be converted into glucose and polyester remains as the only polymer and is thus accessible for a rather easy recycling process. The obtained glucose can be used as raw material for different platform chemicals. The project team successfully demonstrated the functionality of the whole processing chain, by complete removal of the cotton from the textile, and weaving of new towels with the recycled polyester.