Research project granted to develop a new textile recycling technology
We are very happy to announce that Vinnova decided to fund our RE:Spin project, where we will develop a new textile recycling technology in collaboration with Lund University, RISE, H&M Group Circular Innovation Lab and Valmet. The project will run for 2 years and has a budget of approximately 2 MSEK, both from Vinnova’s grant and the contributions from the partners.
The main result expected from the project is a new technology for textile recycling where waste textiles are directly respinned into new fibers with similar characteristics than the starting material. Respinning textile fibers could significantly increase the circularity of textile recycling, compared to the innovations proposed at present, since it could increase the number of times that cotton waste could be recycled, as the degree of polymerization is reduced progressively through several recycling cycles until it reaches a suitable value for production of man-made cellulose fibers instead of targeting this value already at the first cycle.
In addition, the technology could offer the possibility to recycle man-made cellulose fibers since, thanks to the preservation of the degree of polymerization, it could be possible to produce spindopes with acceptable properties to produce new fibers even when the starting material has a low degree of polymerization.
The project consists of 6 work packages (WP), whose responsibility is divided between the different partners. ShareTex is responsible WP6 – Project management and WP4 – Market perspective and scalability, although it is expected much input from H&M Group Circular Innovation Lab and Valmet in this WP. The division of Materials and Production at RISE is responsible for WP2 – Development and optimization of spinning method while their LCA division is responsible for WP5 – Life cycle perspective. Lund University is responsible for WP1 – Raw materials and dissolution of blended fibers and Valmet is responsible for WP3 – Process design.
