Study of the recyclability of fabrics made with mechanically recycled yarns

Abstract

In 2025, the Textile Industry is said to be in the top five of the most polluting industries globally with material production representing the most contaminating segment of the textile value chain. At the same time, in the last ten years, textile waste has become a worldwide issue: in Europe, textile waste is expected to grow from 7 million tons yearly in 2020 to 9 million tons in 2030. Textile recycling is seen as one of the ways to reduce both the amount of textile waste and the impacts of virgin materials production. Among all textile recycling methods, mechanical recycling is the most energy efficient method. But because mechanical recycling relies on defibration, it is known to reduce fiber length significantly during the process. The object of the thesis is to study what happens when a second cycle of mechanical recycling is carried out on fabrics originally made from mechanically recycled fibers. This research work focused on woven twill fabrics made with mechanically recycled fibers and evaluated the feasibility and viability of recycling those fabrics, mechanically, another time. It studied two yarn blends: cotton/polyester and cotton/viscose. The processes carried out at laboratory scale included defibration, carding, and open-end yarn spinning. Materials were characterized in the forms of fibers, yarns or fabrics with equipments including a Textechno MDTA4 fiber length tester, a Tomsic Easy evenness tester and a Textechno Statimat dynamometer. Results showed that it is feasible to spin yarns from materials recycled twice mechanically. Results obtained at laboratory scale also suggested that the output yarns presented higher unevenness, lower strength, elongation and tenacity: -39% breaking tenacity of the recycled CO/PES blend compared to original yarn. Overall, the recycled materials presented a greater variability. Yet results are seen as promising, and it is believed that the outcomes of the research could be improved drastically when studying the same materials and processes at industrial level (10-20kg of materials)