Approaches of enzyme-based biotechnology to achieve textiles recovery and reuse for circularity

Global consumption of textiles continues to increase year on year. This rapid growth of textile consumption demands greater use of resources and enormous amounts of energy and water for producing virgin materials and processing into textiles. This results in the depletion of natural non-renewable resources and contributes significantly to carbon emissions, which is unsustainable. Currently, only a small amount of textiles are reused or recycled, while millions of tonnes of textiles, including a large proportion of blended textiles (made from more than one different fibre type) end up in landfills or are incinerated.
The textile industry is currently working towards transitioning to a circular economy that moves away from the current linear system of take-make-use-dispose. Although, prolonged use and reuse is considered more beneficial than upcycling and recycling, the latter could help reduce the industries negative environmental impact as it could reduce virgin textile fibre production and avoid intense processing within the supply chain. Research is urgently needed to develop technologies for upcycling, recycling, and reuse of waste textiles to achieve textile circularity.
The proposed project is designed to challenge current problems related to the recovery, recycling, and reuse of textiles, to keep valuable resources in-use as long as possible. Advances in biotechnology offers opportunities for the exploration of enzyme-based processing to recover and recycle textile fibres from blended fabrics. The aim of the project is to develop enzyme-based biotechnologies to recover valuable resources from wool blended fabrics, specifically wool/synthetic and wool/bast fibre blends, for recycling and reuse to support textile sectors transition towards circularity. The project will focus on utilising biotechnology to re-manufacture post-consumer and post-industrial textile waste for new applications by using the enzymes protease and transglutaminase to create new surface pattern on fabrics with textural effects and or repair damaged wool fibres for fabric reuse, respectively. Novel enzyme-based biotechnologies will also be developed to separate bast (flax, hemp and nettle), synthetic (nylon, polyester), and wool fibres, from blended fabrics for upcycling bast fibres into cottonised fibres, and recycling synthetic fibres back into fibres. Extracted valuable wool protein polypeptides will be utilised to develop novel added value machine washable wool.
This multidisciplinary research project between De Montfort University and Loughborough University brings together three UK based industry partners with a global reach: a contract upholstery fabric manufacturer, a wool cloth manufacturer, and a wool textile manufacturing and innovation company to ensure project outputs are of direct relevance to various sectors of the industry and enable alignment to sustainable circular development to deliver economic and environmental impact when scaled up, widely contributing to realising the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Textiles made from blended fibres have proved difficult for recycling due to different fibre types being intimately blended. Advances in biotechnology offers opportunities for the exploration of enzyme-based processing to recycle textile fibres from blended textiles. Proteases from the group of hydrolases can hydrolyse wool fibres to achieve fibre surface modification, or partial degradation to complete dissolution of wool fibres from wool blended fabrics. If wool fibres are extracted to produce wool polypeptides from wool blended fabrics by enzymatic hydrolysis, the other fibre component could be separated for recycling back into textiles. Enzymes are very specific in their catalytic action, so will only be effective towards a specific fibre type without causing damage to other fibre components that are present in the blend. Extracted wool polypeptides could be grafted back onto the surface of wool fibres to alter its differential frictional effect to achieve machine washable wool.
The project aims to develop enzyme-based biotechnologies to recover valuable resources from wool blended fabrics, specifically wool/synthetic and wool/bast fibre blends, for recycling and reuse to support textile sectors transition towards circularity. The project will focus on utilising biotechnology to re-manufacture post-consumer and post-industrial textile waste by controlled enzymatic processing using protease to create new surface patterns on fabrics with textural effects for reuse. A novel enzyme-based biotechnology will be also be developed to extract valuable polypeptides from wool blended fabrics, to separate synthetic or bast fibres from blended fabrics for their recycling back into fabrics. Added value machine washable wool and cottonised bast fibres including flax, hemp and nettle fibres are to be developed through enzymatic processes. The successful outcomes could support the textile industry transition from a linear system to a circular economy.