BIOREFTEX – A biorefinery approach to recycle waste textiles into green chemicals

Textile recycling has been identified as one key area in need of innovation to achieve climate goals in the EU and address the increasing environmental problem that waste textiles pose. Innovators in the field have developed textile-to-textile recycling technologies, but this cannot handle certain types of waste. This is particularly the case for cellulosic fibers with low molecular weight, such as those developed by TreeToTextile. These fibers often require open-end recycling processes, such as the one developed by ShareTex, in which waste textiles become platform chemicals for the production of bio-based materials.

ShareTex and TreeToTextile join forces in this project, together with LU, to address all these challenges. The main activity of the project is a demonstrator in Lund in which recycled sugar and bioethanol would be produced from production spills from the demo plant of TTT through the recycling technology developed by ShareTex. This demonstrator increases the technology readiness level of ShareTex to 5 and prepares the process for further scale-up.

It is expected that the project enables a sustainable handling of production waste from an upcoming textile producer in Sweden while providing a recycled and bio-based carbon source for the chemical industry, so that it can decrease its dependency on virgin and fossil-based feedstocks. Thus, the results of the project could positively benefit circularity and bio-based share in both the textile and chemical industries.