New paper on glucose production from waste textiles

Our latest paper on glucose production from waste textiles has been published on Recycling, a journal from MDPI. In many occasions, waste textiles cannot be used as a starting material for the production of new fibers. The reason for this is that the mechanical properties of textile fibers depend on the length of the cellulose polymers in them. The length of the polymers tends to decrease during the use of the material as well as its recycling and therefore the polymers cannot be indefinitely used to produce new fibers because they become weaker and weaker.

The method described in this article proposes an alternative method to recycle these short fibers into glucose, a sugar molecule that can be used in the chemical industry to manufacture many different products. Thanks to this alternative, even waste textiles that are not suitable for textile-to-textile recycling can be valorized, which diminishes the need for incineration or other unsustainable practices.

We want to congratulate our associated researcher, Edvin Ruuth, on his first author paper. This is a big step forward in his doctoral studies!

The full version of the paper, open access, can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/2313-4321/7/4/57