Post-consumer polyester-rich textiles have been recovered and processed into the base monomer of a 100% recycled polyester by a joint French-Japanese venture.
Three partners, Axens, Jeplan and Ifpen, conducted tests at Jeplan’s semi-industrial demonstration unit in Japan after the textiles were collected and sorted in France by operators Nouvelles Fibres Textile and Mapea.
The partners say the project paves the way for circular polyester loops for the textile industry, in particular sportswear, home furnishings and the luxury sector.
Large-scale potential
Their REWIND PET process delivered ‘tens of tonnes’ of a base monomer of polyester which will be converted into polyester yarns, fabrics and garments.
‘This industrial textile-to-textile recycling test of several tonnes of post-consumer PET is one of the first of its kind under representative industrial conditions,’ the partners say. ‘It paves the way for large-scale industrial chemical recycling of textile polyester, offering textile stakeholders a building block that can be integrated into a global strategy across the entire value chain committed to reduction, reuse, and textile recycling.’
Licensing
The process can be installed at industrial sites producing polyester for the textile industry, thereby enabling the substitution of fossil-based raw materials with their recycled equivalents.
‘The technology, already proven and commercialised for recycling all PET packaging, including food-contact applications, is now validated for textile use under an exclusive licence granted by Ifpen/Jeplan to Axens worldwide to any industrial player wishing to develop local or regional textile-to-textile loops.’
The partners
Axens Group delivers solutions for the conversion of oil and biomass into cleaner fuels, the production and purification of the main petrochemical intermediates, the chemical recycling of plastics and metals, natural gas treatment and conversion options, carbon capture and environmental solutions for air and water treatment.
Ifpen is a French public research, innovation and training organisation in the fields of energy, mobility and the environment.
Jeplan develops and deploys proprietary chemical recycling technologies that break down waste PET from bottles, polyester fibres, and textiles.
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