Austrian researchers succeeded in chemically separating polyamide from wool – Innovation Origins

Polyamide is produced from crude oil, which is a non-renewable raw material. Up until now, attempts to recycle clothing have failed because of […] blended fibers. This is all the more problematic since the quantities of clothing that contain polyamide are enormous. Taking into account a typical blend of 15 to 20%, the production volume worldwide was 10.8 million metric tons in 2018.

“If we can recover just a part of this as raw material for new fibers, we will already be making a major contribution to the environment,” says Dr. Tung Pham, head of the Research Institute for Textile Chemistry and Textile Physics based in Innsbruck, Austria. Together with his team, he has developed a new method for recycling clothing that contains polyamide fibers. He explains this process in an interview with Innovation Origins.

 

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https://innovationorigins.com/en/recycling-breakthrough-for-clothing-made-with-polyamide/