Watch: Recycling Cotton Into New Fabric

Recycled Cotton Becomes New Fabric

Researchers have developed a method that converts cotton into sugar, which can then be turned into spandex, nylon, or ethanol.

Many of us try to recycle our old textiles, but few of us know that they are actually very difficult to reuse, and often end up in landfills anyway. Now, scientists at Lund University in Sweden have developed a method that converts cotton into sugar, that in turn can be turned into valuable products including spandex, nylon, and ethanol.

It is estimated that 25 million tons of cotton textiles are discarded around the world every year. When you add up the different types, a total of 100 million tons of textiles are thrown out. In Sweden, most of the material goes straight into an incinerator and becomes district heating. In other places, it is even worse, as old clothes usually end up in landfills.

“Considering that cotton is a renewable resource, this is not particularly energy-efficient,” says Edvin Ruuth, a researcher in chemical engineering at Lund University.

“Some fabrics still have such strong fibers that they can be re-used. This is done today and could be done even more in the future. But a lot of the fabric that is discarded has fibers that are too short for re-use, and sooner or later all cotton fibers become too short for the process known as fiber regeneration.”

Where Edvin Ruuth works, at the Department of Chemical Engineering in Lund, there is a great deal of accumulated knowledge about using micro-organisms and enzymes, among other things, to transform the “tougher” carbohydrates in biomass into simpler molecules. This means that everything from biological waste and black liquor to straw and wood chips can become bioethanol, biogas, and chemicals.

Now the researchers have also succeeded in breaking down the plant fiber in cotton — the cellulose — into smaller components. However, no microorganisms or enzymes are involved this time; instead, the process involves soaking the fabrics in sulphuric acid. The result is a clear, dark, amber-colored sugar solution.

“The secret is to find the right combination of temperature and sulphuric acid concentration,” explains Ruuth, who fine-tuned the ‘recipe’ together with doctoral student Miguel Sanchis-Sebastiá and professor Ola Wallberg.

Glucose is a very flexible molecule and has many potential uses, according to Ruuth.

“Our plan is to produce chemicals which in turn can become various types of textiles, including spandex and nylon. An alternative use could be to produce ethanol.”

From a normal sheet, they extract five liters of sugar solution, with each liter containing the equivalent of 33 sugar cubes. However, you couldn’t turn the liquid into a soft drink as it also contains corrosive sulphuric acid.

One of the challenges is to overcome the complex structure of cotton cellulose.

“What makes cotton unique is that its cellulose has a high crystallinity. This makes it difficult to break down the chemicals and reuse their components. In addition, there are a lot of surface treatment substances, dyes, and other pollutants which must be removed. And structurally, a terrycloth towel and an old pair of jeans are very different,” says Ruuth.

“Thus it is a very delicate process to find the right concentration of acid, the right number of treatment stages, and temperature.”

The concept of hydrolizing pure cotton is nothing new per se, explains Ruuth; it was discovered in the 1800s. The difficulty has been to make the process effective, economically viable, and attractive.

“Many people who tried ended up not utilizing much of the cotton, while others did better but at an unsustainable cost and environmental impact,” says Ruuth.

When he started making glucose out of fabrics a year ago, the return was a paltry three to four percent. Now he and his colleagues have reached as much as 90 percent.

Once the recipe formulation is complete, it will be both relatively simple and cheap to use.

However, for the process to become a reality, the logistics must work. There is currently no established way of managing and sorting various textiles that are not sent to ordinary clothing donation points.

Fortunately, a recycling center unlike any other in the world is currently under construction in Malmö, where clothing is sorted automatically using a sensor. Some clothing will be donated, rags can be used in industry, and textiles with sufficiently coarse fibers can become new fabrics. The rest will go to district heating.

Hopefully, the proportion of fabrics going to district heating will be significantly smaller once the technology from Lund is in place.

Reference: “Novel sustainable alternatives for the fashion industry: A method of chemically recycling waste textiles via acid hydrolysis” by Miguel Sanchis-Sebastiá, Edvin Ruuth, Lars Stigsson, Mats Galbe and Ola Wallberg, 31 December 2020, Waste Management.
DOI: 10.1016/j.wasman.2020.12.024

2 Comments on "Watch: Recycling Cotton Into New Fabric"

  1. stephen p schaffer | July 2, 2022 at 7:57 am | Reply

    I am not a scientist not even close. But, cotton is a natural plant fiber that will rot away over time. this article is about turning cotton into a synthetic plastic material that will last forever. I fail to see anything positive here. We used to make rag bond paper products out of cotton. They weren’t plastic. This can’t be the best solution for cotton fabric. Besides 99% of all clothing (and everything else) is plastic.

  2. Clyde Spencer | July 2, 2022 at 12:50 pm | Reply

    “The difficulty has been to make the process effective, ECONOMICALLY VIABLE, and attractive.”

    Finally, someone who sees the whole picture and isn’t just focused on the technical details!

Leave a Reply to Clyde Spencer Cancel reply

Email address is optional. If provided, your email will not be published or shared.