Reclaiming the Value of Cotton Waste Textiles: A New Improved Method to Recycle Cotton Waste Textiles via Acid HydrolysisShow others and affiliations
2022 (English)In: Recycling, E-ISSN 2313-4321, Vol. 7, no 4, article id 57Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
The fashion industry is becoming one of the largest emitters worldwide due to its high consumption of raw materials, its effluents, and the fact that every garment will eventually contribute to the vast amount of waste being incinerated or accumulating in landfills. Although fiber-to-fiber recycling processes are being developed, the mechanical properties of the textile fibers are typically degraded with each such recycle. Thus, tertiary recycling alternatives where textiles are depolymerized to convert them into valuable products are needed to provide end-of-life alternatives and to achieve circularity in the fashion industry. We have developed a method whereby cotton waste textiles are depolymerized to form a glucose solution, using sulfuric acid as the sole catalyst, with a high yield (>70%). The glucose solution produced in this process has a high concentration (>100 g/L), which reduces the purification cost and makes the process industrially relevant. This method can be applied regardless of the quality of the fibers and could therefore process other cellulosic fibers such as viscose. The glucose produced could subsequently be fermented into butanediol or caprolactam, precursors for the production of synthetic textile fibers, thus retaining the value of the waste textiles within the textile value chain. © 2022 by the authors.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
MDPI , 2022. Vol. 7, no 4, article id 57
Keywords [en]
acid hydrolysis, cotton, recycling, sulfuric acid, valorization, waste textiles
National Category
Energy Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-60083DOI: 10.3390/recycling7040057Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85136738581OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-60083DiVA, id: diva2:1694432
Note
Funding details: Energimyndigheten, 51217-1; Funding text 1: This work was supported by the Swedish Energy Agency [project number 51217-1].
2022-09-092022-09-092024-01-19Bibliographically approved