A new textile recycling process holds the promise of cleaning up the planet and boosting the circular economy.
It easily separates cotton from polyester, producing usable glucose from the former and leaving the latter undamaged, per a University of Amsterdam news release published by Phys.org.
The researchers, in partnership with sustainable chemicals company Avantium, used super-concentrated hydrochloric acid on polycotton waste. The acid breaks down the cotton into a glucose solution, and the polyester remains, "providing the ability to fully recycle both components in subsequent steps," the team wrote.
This sidesteps a major issue with textile recycling, as the fibers are difficult to disentangle, ScienceDirect noted in highlights about a different study. It also helps reduce the waste that is burying developing nations; Americans discard 21 billion pounds of clothes every year.
"Being able to recover glucose from the cotton in textile waste is a crucial contribution to this, as glucose is a key bio-based feedstock," said Gert-Jan Gruter, head of the industrial sustainable chemistry department at the Van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences at the University of Amsterdam. "Currently, it is produced from starch from corn and wheat. If and when we will be producing plastics from biomass on a large scale, the world will need a lot of non-food glucose."
Phys.org published a photograph that showed the results of the process: Just polyester seams and their labels were left after cotton shirts had been bathed in the acid.
"It is the first effective method for recycling both cotton and polyester components of polycotton with high efficiency," according to the release.
The project falls under the mixed cotton-polyester waste textiles umbrella, which is years in the making at the University of Amsterdam. It also included textile sorting and recycling company Wieland Textiles, sustainable workwear company Groenendijk Bedrijfskleding, Dutch industry trade association Modint, and polyester recycling technology company CuRe Technology.
The release states that the glucose from the cotton can be used in polymers, resins, and solvents; high yields and those industrial applications show that the method is scalable and affordable.
Amazingly, Avantium can also use the glucose to create "a crucial component" of polyethylene furanoate, a biobased material that can be used instead of polyethylene terephthalate, which is used to manufacture plastic containers and polyester.
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Gruter said Avantium has "invested substantially" in the process with the hope that it leads to the first industrial polycotton textile recycling facility and the first commercially available non-food glucose.
"Many parties are trying to get either of these things done but no one has succeeded yet," Gruter said. "Our ambition is to advance this technology to the next phase of commercialization, together with partners. So we might very well be the first to market non-food glucose obtained through a bio-refinery approach."
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