Textile waste refinery for the production of recycled plastic, cellulose and dye

用于生产再生塑料、纤维素和染料的纺织废料精炼厂

• 批准号: EP/Y003888/1
• 负责人: Chenyu Du
• 金额: $ 186.43万
• 依托单位: University of Huddersfield
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FY003888%2F1
• 关键词: Textile; waste; refinery; production; recycled

Textiles for clothing are a major user of plastics, in which the plastic component is frequently combined with natural fibres such as cotton and wool. Globally, 438 million tonnes of plastic were produced in 2017, of which 62 M tonnes were used in the textile industry (compared with 158 M tonnes used in plastic packaging). Plastics in textile waste are thus a major, but hidden, contributor to the plastic waste issue. In the UK, 2.5 M tonnes of plastic packaging and >1 M tonnes of textile waste are generated annually.While plastic packaging has attracted attention and concern worldwide for some time, textile waste has only become prominent recently, in part because separating the plastic from the natural fibres and other components makes recycling textile waste a challenging task. A 2016 UK survey showed that textile waste goes to landfills 55%, incineration 26% and recycling/reusing 16%, with <1% textile waste used to generate material to be used for producing new clothing. Apart from old clothes recycled or reused via charity organisations, the majority of the plastic used in the textile industry is not recycled, contributing to plastic pollution and depletion of raw materials.If the plastic component (mainly polyester) can be separated from cotton, dye and other components in the textile waste, it can be recycled into reclaimed fibres using the same method for recycling plastic bottles into textile products. Existing mechanical recycling technology can recycle textile waste composed of a single polymer, but is not able to treat complex textiles such as polycotton garments (a mixture of polyester and cotton). Chemical recycling methods break down the textile fibres into their building blocks and then synthesise new polymers and subsequently new fibres via appropriate spinning techniques. But chemical recycling is energy intensive and natural fibres, such as cotton (formed of cellulose) and wool (protein fibre), are degraded to a point that they cannot be used to generate new fibre, therefore losing their intrinsic value.Researchers at the University of Huddersfield have recently developed an enzyme-assisted textile waste valorisation process that breaks down cellulose into glucose for biofuel fermentations, allowing recycling of the remaining polyester. The proposed project will modify this enzymatic approach to only partially break down cellulose to enable its separation from the polyester in polycotton, such that both components can be recovered and re-spun into new textile fibres.The project will also apply ionic liquid extraction for the separation of cellulose from plastics, separately and in combination with enzyme processing. Ionic liquids can dissolve cellulose, but the high price of commonly used ionic liquids have limited their commercial application. Researchers at Imperial College London have pioneered the development of more sustainable and cost effective ionic liquid extraction processes using much cheaper ionic liquids. The ionoSolv process for sustainable cellulose production was selected by Scientific American as one of the Top Ten Emerging Technologies of 2019 and is currently being commercialised for the fractionation of waste biomass by Lixea Ltd. (www.lixea.co) at a £4 million bespoke pilot plant in Sweden. In this project, ionoSolv technology will be applied to recover both the natural cellulose fibres and the dyes from waste textiles, in forms suitable for reuse in new textile products.The recycled polyester and cellulose will be re-spun into fibre at the Technical Textile Research Centre at the University of Huddersfield. The regenerated fibre will then be used by the industrial partner to demonstrate its suitability for making new textile products. The economic, social and environmental impacts of the novel process will be assessed for its benefits to stakeholders throughout the value chain - recyclers, manufacturing industries, retailers, consumers and society as a whole.

服装的纺织品是塑料的主要用户，其中塑料成分经常与棉花和羊毛等天然纤维结合使用。在全球范围内，2017年生产了4.38亿吨塑料，其中纺织工业使用了62 m吨（相比之下，塑料包装中使用了158 m吨）。因此，纺织品废物中的塑料是塑料废物问题的主要但隐藏的，但隐藏了。在英国，每年产生2.5 m吨的塑料包装和> 1 m吨的纺织品废物。在一段时间以来，塑料包装吸引了全球关注和关注，但纺织废物最近才变得很突出，部分原因是将塑料与天然纤维和其他组件分开，使再利用的纺织品浪费质地浪费一项挑战任务。 2016年英国的一项调查显示，纺织品废物用于垃圾填埋场55％，焚化26％，回收/重复使用16％，<1％的纺织废物用于生产用于生产新服装的材料。除了通过慈善机构进行回收或重复使用的旧衣服外，纺织工业中使用的大多数塑料都没有回收，这有助于塑料污染和原材料的定义。如果塑料组件（主要是聚酯）可以与棉花，染料和其他组件分开，将其恢复到纺织品中，将其恢复到纺织品中，将其恢复到相同的产品中。现有的机械回收技术可以回收由单个聚合物组成的纺织品废物，但无法处理复杂的纺织品，例如Polycotton服装（聚酯和棉花的混合物）。化学回收方法将纺织纤维分解成其组成部分，然后通过适当的旋转技术合成新的聚合物，然后将新的纤维分解为新的聚合物。但是化学回收是能量密集型和天然纤维，例如棉花（由纤维素形成）和羊毛（蛋白质纤维）降解，以至于它们不能用来产生新的纤维，因此失去了其内在价值，因此丢失了他们的杂种型纤维化质量的纤维化杂物，以使其在纤维化的范围内开发出纤维化的杂物，以使纤维化杂质降落，该过程使得杂种杂种杂种，以使杂种杂种散发出杂种，剩余聚酯的回收。拟议的项目将修改这种酶促方法，仅部分分解纤维素以使其与聚酯分离，以便可以恢复两个组件并将其重新纺成新的纺织品纤维中。该项目还将应用离子液体萃取，以将纤维素从塑料中分离，并结合enzyseme处理。离子液体可以溶解纤维素，但是常用离子液体的高价限制了其商业应用。伦敦帝国学院的研究人员率先开发了使用更便宜的离子液体开发更可持续和具有成本效益的离子液体提取过程。 Ionosolv可持续纤维素生产的过程被Scientific American选为2019年的前十名新兴技术之一，目前正在商业化瑞典的400万英镑BESPOKE PILOT工厂，以Lixea Ltd.（www.lixea.co）的废物生物量分馏。在该项目中，Ionosolv技术将用于回收自然纤维素纤维和从废物纺织品中恢复染料，以适合在新纺织品产品中重新使用的形式。回收的聚酯和纤维素将在Huddersfield大学技术纺织品研究中心的纤维中重新培养。然后，工业合作伙伴将使用再生纤维来证明其制造新纺织品产品的适用性。新型过程的经济，社会和环境影响将被评估，因为其对整个价值链中的利益相关者的利益 - 回收商，制造业，零售商，消费者和整个社会。