Lignocellulosic in the fashion and textile industry

November 2018: Yarn made of cellulose fibrils from plant-based materials could aid the fashion and textile industry to battle plastic pollution from microfibres.

Information 

Since the 1940s, companies have extracted cellulose and lignin out of plant-based materials such as wood to produce a fibre called viscose. However, producing viscose requires toxic chemicals, is expensive and technologically difficult. R&D by wood chemists have achieved a technological breakthrough in extracting lignin and cellulose by using pressure spinning, freezing, ultrasound, exposure to sulphuric acid and micro-grinding to extract cellulose fibrels at nanoscale without using toxic chemicals. Cellulose Nano Fibrels (CNF) and Cellulose Nano Crystals (CNC) have properties that makes them suitable to replace oil, gas, and coal as chemical feedstock for plastics, while remaining biodegradable. One use for CNFs and CNCs is “Lyocell”. It is a cellulose-based yarn process that can be used in fashion and textile industries to combat plastic pollution on land and in oceans from microfibres in commercially used, plastic-based yarn fibres.

Applicability

Over 40 lignocellulosics biorefineries operate in Europe and approximately 10 companies worldwide are able to produce CNC and CNF at commercial scale: Paperlogic, Forest Products Laboratory, American Process, Borregaard, Innventia, Nippon Paper, Oji Paper, CTP/FCBA, Holmen Paper. Simultaneously, Stora Enso, Borregaard, Metsa, UPM, Mondi, and Sappi invested into major R&D programmes researching wood biorefinery. The artificial, but biodegradable cellulose fibres offer huge potential for the fashion and textile industry. The cross-industry group “Textile Exchange” reported CNFs as the fastest growing sector of environmentally preferred textiles. One example for the use of Lyocell is Finland-based fashion house Marimekko. Marimekko released a fashion line using lignocellulosics derived from wood as their main component.