An innovative and waterfree process for elastane removal in post-consumer blended textile waste

Important results from the project

The project largely achieved its objectives by validating that supercritical CO2 with specific additives can remove elastane and dyes from blended textiles at lab scale. An important unexpected result was that subcritical conditions delivered similar performance, which may reduce CAPEX and OPEX during scale-up. The project also contributed to new partnerships, laboratory collaborations, and a successful seed funding round enabling the scaling of the technology to industrial scale

Expected long term effects

The project is expected to enable industrial textile recycling by recovering cotton and elastane from waste currently incinerated or landfilled. Long term, the technology can reduce dependence on virgin materials, support compliance with EU Extended Producer Responsibility requirements, and strengthen Sweden’s position in advanced textile recycling. The results also create conditions for industrial scale-up and new circular value chains in the textile industry.

Approach and implementation

The project used an iterative design-of-experiments approach where supercritical CO2 with different additives was tested on cotton and cotton-elastane textiles under varying conditions. Results were evaluated using microscopy, weight-loss measurements and TGA analysis. The work was carried out with academic partners and customers, and the experimental plan was adapted continuously based on findings, including the discovery that subcritical conditions could achieve similar performance.