INCA Renewtech is using knowledge in plant genomics, hemp cultivation, fiber processing and composites manufacturing to develop new types of natural fiber composites.

By Camille Saltman

Powerful market forces are leading industry to adopt more environmentally friendly, domestically sourced materials in their products. These forces include government regulations to reduce plastics pollution, sequester carbon and achieve higher lifecycle performance. They also include investor focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives. These metrics are now being used to measure investment risk and deter-mine the value of corporations. Equally important is growing consumer demand for less toxic, more sustainable products. Consumer purchasing repre-sents 70 percent of the U.S. economy and as customers change their buying patterns major brands are transitioning to recyclable products.

Price Affecting Adoption

These powerful market trends have led to significant innovations in biobased polymer chemistry and natural fiber reinforced materials. Today, many of the same products that are synthesized from hydrocarbon molecules derived from oil and natural gas can be produced from carbohydrates derived from agriculturally grown plants. This includes plastics, textiles, fertilizers, building materials, furniture, papermaking, packaging, and industrial fillers used in paints, plastics and adhesives, pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, and cosmetics.

The potential benefits of biobased materials are very promising. Petroleum-based products are energy intensive to refine, generate harmful byproducts in the process, and often are difficult to recover and recycle at the end of their useful lifecycles. Plant-based products sequester carbon, generate no toxic byproducts, and are much more easily recovered, recycled, or even composted. How-ever, there are two significant barriers to their wide scale adoption — price and performance.

Many biopolymers including poly-hydroxyalkanoate (PHA) and poly-lactic acid (PLA) are more expensive than petroleum-derived incumbents such as polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene. This is mainly because of scale. New materials have to compete with enormous, vertically integrated petrochemical companies that have invested billions of dollars in manufacturing infrastructure. Price is impeding the formation of the major industrial product development partnerships necessary to develop high performance solutions. Until more sustainable, biobased materials can compete on price, biomaterials will remain niche products.

Hemp Biomass For Industrial Use

Canada-based INCA Renewable Technologies (INCA Renewtech) is attempting to solve this pain point in the marketplace. Instead of procuring natural fiber from overseas, as competitors do, INCA is purchasing hemp biomass from Canadian farmers growing hemp seed for plant-based protein. The company will process this renewable resource into a set of proprietary high value products for major industrial customers.

Just as the petroleum industry leverages its expertise in exploration, extraction, and chemicals manufacturing to maximize financial return on every barrel of oil, INCA will leverage the company’s expertise in agronomics, fiber processing, composites innovation and manufacturing to maximize return on every bale of hemp.

Vertical Integration

To achieve this vertical integration INCA will build two factories — one in Alberta, Canada, within a 150-mile radius of hemp cultivation; and a second in Indiana within 150 miles of customers in the automotive, recreational vehicle (RV) and consumer products industries.
Hemp has been legally cultivated in the Canadian Prairies for more than 20 years where it is primarily grown for plant-based protein. The remaining stalks contain some of the strongest natural fiber on earth. If properly refined and manufactured, hemp fiber can function as a direct replacement for glass fiber in composites.

Whole hemp bales will be decorticated, a process that mechanically separates the long outer bast fiber from the short inner core, called hurd. The bast fiber will be further refined to create the ultra-clean material required for its products. In Alberta, the hurd will be used to manufacture INCA BioBalsa™, a product designed as a direct replacement for the balsa wood used in boats and wind turbine blades. The refined bast fiber will be sent via rail to the company’s second factory in Bristol. There it will be manufactured into three additional products — INCA BioPanels™ for the RV industry; INCA Prepregs™ for the automotive industry; and INCA BioPlastics™ for the consumer products industry.

Domestically sourcing and processing hemp lowers raw material and logistics costs and reduces sup-ply chain challenges, versus importing expensive jute, flax or kenaf from Southeast Asia, as other bio-composite manufacturers do.

A Brief History Of Hemp

Hemp, or Cannabis sativa L., was one of the first crops cultivated by man. Recorded use dates back more than 8,000 years. Hemp cultivation began in what is now China and spread quickly across Asia, Europe, Africa and later South America. It was such a strategic crop that in 1533 King Henry VIII fined English farmers if they did not raise hemp. Britannia could not have ruled the waves without hemp rope and canvas. Until the late 1800s, most of the paper in the world was produced from hemp pulp.

Hemp was originally introduced to North America in 1606 where it was grown for papermaking, cordage, lamp fuel and clothing. However, at the turn of the 20th century powerful forces set out to delegitimize the cultivar. It was seen as a direct competitor by the pulp and paper industry, and by Dupont, which invented nylon as a petroleum-based substitute for hemp textiles. Backed by powerful industry lobbyists, hemp was included in the 1938 Opium and Narcotic Drug Act in Canada, and the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act in the United States which essentially killed the hemp industry.

Hemp is experiencing a major rebirth in North America and around the world. In 1998, it became legal to grow hemp in Canada for commercial production. Canada’s Industrial Hemp Regulations, part of the Cannabis Act 2018, allows for whole plant utilization of the crop. In 2020, there were approximately 53,000 acres of hemp being cultivated and this is expected to expand dramatically as the market for plant-based protein and fiber grows for the following reasons:

• Hemp matures in as little as 90 days and can be grown with low water and chemical inputs;
• As a rotational crop it breaks disease cycles and has a long tap root that aerates the soil;
• It yields four times the biomass of a forest in one season, compared to 25 years of tree growth, and;
• Every portion of the plant can be commercialized, creating multiple revenue streams.

Segments Seeking Advanced Biocomposite Solutions: Recreational Vehicles

Since the 1970s, the recreational vehicle industry has been dependent upon rainforest hardwood plywood from Southeast Asia to construct side walls and roofing systems. Hard-wood plywood’s strength, light weight and smooth surface make it a product in high demand not only for RVs but also transport trailers, furniture, decorative paneling and even Hollywood movie sets. In 2021, the RV industry alone used 620 million board feet of lauan plywood. Unfortunately, the popularity of this material has led to devastation of primordial rain forests throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, Borneo and the Philippines. Plywood prices have sky-rocketed, quality has fallen, and manufacturers are actively seeking alternatives.

To construct an RV, sheets of ply-wood are seamed together like stick frame housing. Exterior wall panels are laminated with aluminum or fiberglass, and interior walls with paper or vinyl. Urethane foam insulation is sandwiched between the inner and outer walls. However, plywood off-gasses formaldehyde, absorbs moisture, and burns easily. After just a few years, seams telegraph through the exterior walls of the vehicles.

Oriented strand board (OSB) is much heavier than plywood and it too absorbs water and off-gasses formaldehyde. Fiberglass reinforced plastic panels are more expensive and labor intensive, and delaminate, warp, and offer poor insulative properties.

INCA has developed a revolutionary panel product made from a blend of hemp fiber and a proprietary thermoset resin system. The company has signed an exclusive sales agreement with Elkhart, Ind.-based Genesis Products Inc., which designs, engineers, and manufactures a range of products for the RV, construction, transportation, and furniture markets. Genesis has facilitated a product development agreement with Winnebago for the company’s entire panel production capacity.

Automotive

The automotive industry utilizes resin infused panels, called prepregs, to mold 3D interior trim components such as door panels, seat backs, headliners and package trays. Prepregs can incorporate glass, natural fiber or even carbon fiber to reinforce the thermal melt polymer matrix. Prepregs can come in the form of flat panels or nonwovens such as those produced by Indiana-based companies FlexForm Technologies in Elkhart, and Carver Non-Woven Technologies in Fremont. The automobile industry was an early adopter of these prepreg materials because of their lower cost and high strength-to-weight ratio, which results in better fuel mileage and improved customer safety.

Automotive manufacturers heat these prepregs in hot presses, surface them with cover stock, and compression mold them into final 3D components. While nonwovens have proven to be of great value to the automotive industry, they depend upon expensive natural fiber such as jute or kenaf imported from South-east Asia. They also use a high percentage of polymer fiber, adding considerable cost.

On behalf of Toyota, INCA has developed a methodology to deposit a multi-layered mat of hemp and polymer fiber and consolidate the material on a twin steel belt press to produce thermoformable prepregs for the automotive industry. These prepregs will be stronger, improving side impact resistance, and lighter improving mileage. They can be easily recycled back into new products once vehicles have reached the end of their useful lifecycles.

Thermoplastics

Plastics are a multi-billion-dollar industry led by the world’s largest petrochemical companies. Thermoplastics such as PP, high density polyethylene (HDPE), and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) are used in packaging, furniture, flooring, roofing membranes, automobile interiors, medical devices, and countless other consumer products. Their relatively low cost, high moisture resistance, and ability to be heated and shaped using injection, compression or extrusion molding machines make plastics ubiquitous in the modern world. The top polymer producers include Dow Chemical, Lyondell Basell, Exxon Mobil, SABIC, INEOS, and BASF.

Most polymers are derived from petroleum or natural gas. Extraction and refinement of these raw materials generates millions of tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e). They often contain toxic chemicals that may bio-accumulate in humans and animals. As only 9 percent of plastic products are recycled, they cover the earth and pollute the oceans. Often thermoplastics are compounded with glass fibers to reinforce the polymer matrix and enhance structural properties. However, these materials increase the cost and weight of the resulting products. Glass fiber is extraordinarily energy-intensive to manufacture. It has high tensile strength, but low impact strength. Glass is also abrasive on processing equipment and difficult to recycle once products have reached the end of their useful life cycles.

Biobased polymers represent a small percentage of the millions of tons of plastics produced annually. However, the global bioplastics and biopolymers market is growing rapidly. Market drivers include industry and consumer demand for sustainable products, increasingly stringent regulatory mandates, and growing public concern regarding plastics pollution.
Europe has been the major hub for biobased innovation and currently produces 55 percent of all biopolymers, but capacity now is expanding rapidly in Asia and North America. Many of the companies leading the charge are agricultural bioscience companies, or petrochemical companies making the transition to plant-based chemistry.

Bainbridge, Ga.-based Danimer Scientific produces PHAs using oils derived from plant seeds such as canola and soy. The Netherlands-based Total Corbion operates a 75,000 ton-per-year PLA production facility in Thailand and has plans to build a second PLA factory in France. Plymouth, Minn.-based Nature-Works LLC, owned by Cargill and PTT Global Chemical, has a refinery in Minnesota capable of producing 300 million pounds of PLA per year from corn feedstock. While these polymers show great promise, they tend to be significantly more expensive than incumbent petroleum-based polymers and lower in structural performance.

INCA has developed a novel manufacturing methodology to replace glass fiber with natural hemp fiber as a reinforcement in polymeric composites. In INCA’s process, hemp fiber is refined to precise geometries and then blended with various polymers and additives under relatively low heat and pressure. This preserves the structural properties of the natural fiber as well as the polymer. Product benefits of INCA Bio-Plastics include cost and weight reduction, improved stiffness and impact strength, and lower wear on processing equipment. Unlike glass fiber, refined hemp fiber is more amenable to multiple recycling episodes without significant loss in structural properties.

INCA will formulate materials to meet customer specifications. For example, one company may want to utilize recovered PP to lower product costs and increase recycled content, while a second customer may specify a biobased polymer such as PLA or PHA to create 100-percent biobased products. These formulations will be brought together in the form of com-pounded “masterbatch” pellets, that can be shipped directly to manufacturers for use in their injection or compression molding operations with little or no modifications to their existing lines. Final products will be stronger, lighter and less expensive.

Wind Turbine Blades

The balsa tree, Ochroma pyramidale, is a large, fast-growing species native from southern Mexico to southern Brazil. Although classified as a hardwood, balsa is exceptionally soft and lightweight because the trunk of the tree has large cells that store water. When cut and dried these empty cells retain their structure, giving the resulting lumber exceptionally low density and high compressive strength. As a result of these properties, balsa is widely used as a core material in automotive, aerospace and marine applications.

Recently, balsa has become one of the most sought-after materials in the construction of wind turbine blades where it is used to reduce blade weight and increase blade stiffness, particularly in the root section where the mechanical forces are most demanding. This is accomplished by placing shaped balsa in the core of the blade and encapsulating it with styrene-resonated glass fiber to form stressed skin panels. Blade skins are put into tension on one side and compression on the opposite side and held in opposition by the balsa core to resist collapse.

Historically, most balsa wood came from the rainforests of Ecuador, but the species has been largely clear cut, with devastating impacts on ecosystems and indigenous communities. Sixty percent of balsa wood is now plantation grown. However, without the many years required to grow mature trees large enough to produce solid lumber, the industry has adopted end-grain balsa — essentially slicing logs across the grain, milling rectangular pieces, and gluing them back together to form board stock. This has added considerable cost to the product, reduced consistency and lowered technical properties. As a result, many blade manufacturers are turning to high-density polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and PVC foams in the tips and mid-sections of the blades. Unfortunately, foams are expensive and lack the compressive strength to replace balsa in the root section of the blades.

INCA engineers have developed a novel methodology to transform refined hemp hurd into a balsa-like material with high, uniform compressive strength, and a density of 10 pounds per cubic foot, the ideal weight for turbine blades. Unlike balsa wood, it can be formulated to increase moisture resistance, and “tuned” to be compatible with specific resin systems. Unlike PET foams, it has the sheer strength required for installation in all sections of the turbine blade, including the root section. These characteristics provide significant advantages to engineers who are no longer forced to compensate for variations in the material properties of plantation-grown trees.

INCA has signed a strategic development agreement with Switzerland-based Gurit Services AG to develop and manufacture BioBalsa. Gurit develops and manufactures advanced composite solutions for the wind energy, aerospace and marine industries. Its portfolio of structural core materials, prepregs, adhesives, and engineering services is recognized worldwide. Gurit’s customers actively are seeking alternative core materials that can deliver the compressive and sheer strength of balsa as well as meet aggressive sustainability goals.

Lifecycle Analysis

INCA commissioned Canada-based GreenStep Solutions Inc., an independent research and certification organization, to undertake a Product Life Cycle Analysis of the company’s products versus conventional alternatives utilizing the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard.

The company’s in-depth report considered the impacts of industrial hemp farming, product formulations, raw material extraction and processing, energy and water inputs, product manufacturing, and fuel consumption at each stage of the process including downstream transportation and distribution. Their findings demonstrate that:

• INCA BioPanels will reduce carbon emissions by 76 percent, waste production by 89 percent, and water consumption by 82 percent com-pared to lauan rainforest plywood. One square meter will sequester 4.27 kilograms (kg) of CO2e.
• INCA BioPlastics when com-pounded with recycled polypropylene will reduce carbon emissions by 91 percent, waste production by 64 percent and water consumption by 59 percent compared to glass fiber reinforced plastics (GRP). One cubic meter will absorb 517.96 kg of CO2e.
• INCA BioBalsa will have 164-percent less carbon impact than PET and 107- percent less than balsa wood. Production will result in 93-percent less waste than balsa and 99.56-per-cent less than PET. It also means 93-percent less water consumption during manufacturing than for PET. One cubic meter of BioBalsa will absorb 262.31 kg of CO2e.

INCA’s goal is to deliver the trifecta to its customers — price, performance and sustainability — in order to overcome the current barriers to wide scale industrial adoption of biomaterials.

Editor’s Note: Camille Saltman is chief marketing and sales officer, INCA Renewtech

July/August 2022

Why innovation in sewing technology will advance the textiles industry into the Internet of Things

By George Sun

The Internet of Things, frequently referred to as IoT, is a term used to describe the rapidly increasing number of connected devices to the internet. If you have used a streaming device such as a Roku TV, a wearable such as a FitBit, or even an iPhone, you’ve participated in and contributed to the massive IoT industry as a consumer. This movement shows no signs of slowing down any time soon, largely thanks to advancements in technologies such as 5G and access to smaller and faster sensors like inertial measurement systems (IMUs). According to Statista, there were nearly 10 billion devices connected to the internet in 2020. In the next 10 years, that number is projected to grow nearly three-fold, to almost 30 billion devices. While IoT is clearly trending upward, this trend mostly is prevalent in the consumer electronics industry today; however, the textile and garment industry has yet to embrace the IoT revolution. A main reason is that textile and electronics are like water and oil, rarely combined. And if so, they come in as pods, pucks, or straps that are tethered to a piece of cloth. How-ever, inevitably, all devices, including textiles, will be connected to the internet, according to Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Nextiles Inc. Innovations in both materials science as well as sewing technology can help move the industry forward for all.

The Opportunity For Textiles In IoT

The materials that power IoT devices revolve around silicon. With that, peripheral materials such as heavy metals and plastics together make the devices used today from cars to Bluetooth-enabled home products. Manufacturers in semiconductive devices have been reaping the rewards from big data while the textile industry has largely been left out of the IoT movement.

However, the materials have lately seen a plateau in innovation, and as the chip shortage and supply chain issues persist, there needs to be a new player to support the IoT movement. The textile industry is prime to steal the spotlight from consumer electronics, and because up to 95 percent of the body touches fabric on any given day, it is the best means to introduce innovative solutions to wearables, health tech and everyday consumer electronics. In many ways, today’s wearable technology has it backwards by using hard chips to measure the flexible nature of the human body. Whereas in textiles, there is an opportunity to make clothing the protagonist and main data capture tool to gain better data insights that is more comfort-able and amenable to any way, shape, or form a person may go through such as during training or an injury. By turning textiles smart, consumers will have a more comfortable form factor, and manufacturers will be able to gain more insights on their customers by collecting more behavioral data from fabric-based sensors made possible through sewing technology.

Fabric As The Data Capture Tool

The beauty of sewing technology is, with the right blend of materials and patterns, any sewable material can be turned smart. For the textiles industry to innovate quickly, leveraging its current infrastructure machinery, labor and processes in sewing is most efficient. Sewing is more than 1,000 years old and yet it is still ripe for innovation, despite its reputation for being off-shored to countries with cheaper labor. Sewing flexible electronics directly into fabrics is an all-inclusive approach as multiple industry sectors have access to a needle and thread. In addition, sewing fabric-based sensors does not require special machinery, only the ability to use a sewing machine. Lastly, fabric-based sensors and sewing technology can be applied to any industry — allowing any company to be a data capture company first.

The textile industry has the opportunity to reshape how consumers interact with their surroundings — whether it is a smart surface, a tech-enabled uniform, a connected car seat or even smart furniture, By leveraging sewing technology, any manufacturer has the technological tools to capture more data and provide more value back to their end users. It’s becoming apparent that every company is vying to become a data capture company because of the profits and information that can be gained directly from users. Industries that have been left out of the Silicon Revolution during the 60s, such as mills, and garment manufacturers, can finally participate in this revolution that will be dominated through soft goods such as textiles.

A More Connected Future

By merging two disparate technologies, the new — semiconductors and their materials — and the old — sewing and textiles — innovative soft-good materials can add value to the textiles ecosystem and help reshape the way we view connected devices. In combination with the chips and plastic formula, including smart textiles will tremendously advance the state of connected devices and open new opportunities for insightful feedback.

Every time a smart device is used, it gets smarter. Shouldn’t the same machine learning opportunities exist for items that can be sewn? The industry has the opportunity to be rekindled as the new vehicle for connected devices by merging flexible electronic materials with sewing technology. The result, an era that ushers in new form factors and technology that advance not only the industry as a whole, but our society overall.

Editor’s Note: George Sun is co-founder and CEO of Brooklyn, N.Y-based Nextiles Inc., a company that was spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the National Science Foundation. The company partners with select athletes, teams and brands to help innovate and develop a spectrum of customizable, form-fitting and elegantly designed products focused on human movement, data collection and quantification.

July/August 2022

Nuevo Mundo selects Smart-Indigo™ technology from Sedo Engineering to reduce its environmental impact.

TW Special Report

Denim manufacturers in South America — the largest supplier of denim items to the Americas — are investing insustainable technologies. Peru-based company Nuevo Mundo is leading the way. The denim manufacturer will be the first South America-based manufacturer to abandon the chemical production of liquid indigo as it turns itself toward a sustainable technology.

Smart-Indigo™ is a disruptive new technology developed by Switzerland-based Sedo Engineering Ltd. The technology has a growing number of denim manufacturers counting on this unique technology to produce liquid indigo where the only waste product is oxygen. Smart-Indigo makes a huge difference in the denim world by using electricity instead of chemicals to produce liquid indigo for denim dyeing. The use of electricity instead of chemicals results in a process free of hazardous chemicals and one that emits 90-percent less carbon dioxide, and consumes 70-percent less energy and 30 percent less water at different stages of the process. This technology protects the environment, creates safer and healthier workplaces, and offers economical production. Approximately 20 installations are now producing sustainable liquid-indigo in countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, China and Italy in addition to this first installation in South America.

“Until today the denim market and sales have been a price battle as you find in every country at least three to four big players, producing for the local market and as well for export,” said Mr. Mayo, owner of Nuevo Mundo. “To enter the E.U. market and U.S. market so to improve exports we have to clean up the fabrics produced conferring a proper soul and history to be told to the brands and to the final users in order to differentiate and increase the real value of the twill we produce.

“Smart-Indigo is the technology that allows Nuevo Mundo to create a unique value starting from one of the two main components of the denim indigo twill — the indigo dye,” Mayo continued.

“Being cleaner, without using chemicals to dissolve it is the major step to decreasing environmental impact and the first step toward an ecological transaction that soon or later all the world will be forced to do, so being pioneers in adopting technologies confers more consciousness and more knowledge and experience having sooner return of investments and improving the sales,” Mayo concluded.

The technology uses a completely new approach to liquefy the indigo powder. The electrochemical process consumes considerably fewer resources than existing methods. It uses only indigo pigment, caustic soda, water and electricity. In a fully automated process, the clean liquid indigo is produced, metered and fed directly into the dye bath. The Smart-Indigo solution is the most sustainable and independent way to dye denim, according to its developer and manufacturer Sedo-Engineering which comes from a group of textile and dyeing experts. Thus, in addition to the sustainability of the final product, the requirements of the manufacturer are also taken into account with many extras such as automatic washing processes and easy operation.

Producing denim items under such conditions gives every denim producer a key advantage in the continuously more sustainable textile world where consumers and thus, clothing brands, are driving the change towards sustainability. Additionally, these producers benefit from their own dye production on-site in a quantity according to their needs. This offers numerous advantages such as cost savings due to zero costs for chemicals or pre-reduced liquid-indigo, lower costs for water, energy and wastewater treatment, and of course independence from suppliers.

Today’s consumers don’t just shop anymore, they want to feel good about their choices. There is only one direction the textile world is heading, and that is towards sustainability. Brands, as well as manufacturers that change early in this direction, will be the winners of tomorrow. Thanks to pioneers like Nuevo Mundo who rely on new sustainable technologies, the change is being driven forward and the necessary interaction of planet, people, and profit is moving into the center.

July/August 2022

Companies are harnessing nature’s solutions to create technical innovations for sustainable textile coloration.

By Andrew Filarowski

Get involved in any textile coloration conversation in 2022 and circularity is among the first topics on the table. This is fantastic, given that not so long ago the environmental impact of the industry was something of an elephant in the room and not to be talked about.

However, discussion and action are two different things. While as a sector the dyeing industry is much more willing to address its resource-heavy ways, taking positive steps to reduce water and chemical use and carbon emissions can be harder than simply articulating the issue.

Since its release this past spring, the Society of Dyers and Colourists’ (SDC’s) latest white paper, “Destination low carbon: Global technology and innovation reducing the environmental footprint of textile coloration,” has sparked new conversations about what is possible.

The 20-page document covers examples of technology and innovation that can cut down on water and energy used in dyeing processes, as well as effluent created.

But it also examines the ways the textile industry can take influence from and harness the help that nature can provide in devising cleaner solutions for coloration. Two European companies are under the spotlight in this respect.

They are not the only companies blazing a trail in this most fascinating of areas, but they are certainly two to watch, as their processes continue to be developed and refined.

The first company is Switzerland-based Archroma; the second is England-based Colorifix. Both companies make use of natural hues but in very different ways. Archroma has created a limited palette of dyes derived from non-edible agricultural and herbal waste, capable of replacing petrol-based raw materials; while Colorifix uses microorganisms to grow color based on natural DNA codes —including from plants, animals and insects — that can be applied to textiles without added chemicals.

Both innovations open up a myriad of possibilities for forward-thinking dyehouses that could potentially build elements of more natural dyeing into their existing operations.
Let’s look more closely at what each of these companies is doing, in turn.

Removing Toxic Impurities

Archroma, established in 2013, is a global provider of specialist chemicals, serving the coatings, adhesives and sealants markets, as well as branded and performance textiles.
The “Archroma way” was devised to remove as many toxic impurities as possible from the dyeing process while also making savings on energy and water use. This involves creating efficiencies across the board in wet processing, but also using smart chemistry to change recipes rather than equipment.

One key development is the company’s EarthColors®, a new range of dyes based on biosynthetic dyes manufactured near Barcelona, Spain. Agricultural waste is taken from a 500 kilometer radius and processed for use as a replacement petroleum raw material.
What in particular does that waste consist of? Examples include almond nut shells, rosemary leaves and bitter oranges. Using this material saves waste from landfills and creates a natural plant-based alternative — dyestuffs that are of the same quality and the same fastness as a man-made dye.

While the available palette is limited, the resultant products are wide ranging and versatile enough to have already been adopted by brands such as Patagonia, G-Star, Primark, Armed Angels and Esprit. EarthColors has already replaced more than 15 metric tons of petroleum-based raw materials with natural alternatives for dyeing.

Paul Cowell, Archroma’s global head of Competence Centers & Brand Studio, Brand & Performance Textile Specialties, said: “Getting brands onside can be a challenge. When merchandizers want the lowest prices, and designers desire the latest trends, it can often be that the sustainability team’s calls for less resource use goes unheard.

“However, we have seen a positive change in brands’ approaches to sustainability, and more and more brands are looking for impactful solutions.”

Pioneering Clean Dyeing

University of Cambridge researchers Jim Ajioka and Orr Yarkoni founded Colorifix Ltd. in 2016 after learning about the devastating impact of textile dyeing on the environment and also human health in Nepal and Bangladesh during the course of their fieldwork.

Realizing they could use their scientific expertise to engineer microorganisms to create clean dyes, they set about using DNA codes, or “color instructions,” to produce color just as it appears in nature.

Like Archroma, Colorifix takes a holistic look at every stage of dyeing processes, focusing on the engineering of microbes to produce naturally occurring pigments to be deposited and fixed onto textiles without any added chemicals.

Explaining the process, Colorifix CEO Yarkoni said: “What we do is based on the concept that every color in nature made by a living organism — plant, animal, insect, or microbe — is coded for by DNA. By identifying these ‘color instructions,’ Colorifix can replicate that DNA code in a more useful context. “We can insert that code into a microorganism that can then pro duce the color, just as it is produced in nature.”

Yarkoni continued: “The engineered microorganisms are then grown in a fermenter with renewable feedstocks such as yeast, simple sugars, and plant by-products. The microorganisms divide exponentially, resulting in a colorful dye liquor that can be put directly into standard dye machines.”

Colorifix’s pilot dyehouse in Cambridge, which showcases the capabilities of the company’s products, has been busy with potential customers this year — chiefly the mills that implement the technology, but also the brands themselves, taking an overview of their supply chains.

Colorifix sends as little as 50 milliliters of color-producing microorganism to its customers who use it to grow the dye liquor onsite using a fermentor. This distribution model is another opportunity to save carbon, when compared with large tankers filled with man-made dyes.

Coloration programs are much shorter and lower in temperature than those using conventional dyes and just one bacteria-removing wash is required, rather than several baths. There also is no fixing step, or hazardous effluent.

Changing The Sector For The Better

To sum up, presented are just two of the companies working to evolve the way the coloration sector operates using new technology and innovation to harness the natural solutions that our environment can provide.

When overhauling production techniques, a dyeing company’s first thoughts often turn to cost. How much is the outlay, and how long will it take to recoup this money?
The answer is often less than owners and managers would estimate, with resultant savings in water, energy, and chemicals, quickly beginning to offset initial costs.

While every dyehouse is different, the same principle is true of all available solutions to the collective carbon issue outlined in SDC’s white paper, including advancements in control and automaton, or investment in a key piece of new machinery that will harmonize with the existing plant.

The Importance Of Reducing Our Industry’s Carbon Footprint

It feels unnecessary to outline reasons to go greener as this is simply a case of doing the right thing by the planet we inhabit. But also, commitment to environmental standards could be the key to business survival, sooner than one may imagine.

In its “Global Risks Report 2022,” The World Economic Forum puts extreme weather, climate change action failure and biodiversity loss top of its list of major threats for industry in the months and years ahead. Number seven on the list is human environmental damage.

Action on climate change is not something that can be put off. And that means everyone, not just the largest public companies. All businesses should contribute, down to the small and medium-sized enterprises.

This is not simply about minimizing impact on the planet — which should be the first priority of course— but also safeguarding the company’s own future and the jobs of the personnel employed.

Banks and investors are now favoring businesses with strong circularity agendas rather than operations they may view as dirty or unsustainable. Those who cannot demonstrate progress towards becoming cleaner and more efficient will struggle to borrow money to expand.

On top of this, companies bidding for major contracts — particularly with the public sector or powerful clothing brands — are being asked, increasingly, to set out their net zero ambitions in considerable detail. This situation, too, will only intensify.

So, the impetus for every player in the dyeing industry to reduce their environmental footprint is clear and the SDC is doing all it can — via its global networks, and educational opportunities — to help make this happen.

Editor’s note: Andrew Filarowski is technical director of the Society of Dyers and Colourists, Bradford, Eng-land, SDC’s white paper, “Destination low carbon: Global technology and innovation reducing the environmental footprint of textile coloration,” may be downloaded from the association’s website located at sdc.org.uk.

July/August 2022

Rieter’s guiding arm guiding arm refurbishment kit offers uniform load for reduced yarn breakage and undrafted ends.

TW Special Report

The guiding arm in the drafting system plays a major role in ensuring production and quality in the spinning mill. The guiding arm refurbishment kit helps maintain original quality and performance by reducing load variation, thereby lowering yarn breakages and undrafted ends.

The P3-1 guiding arm is a proven drafting system which was introduced more than 25 years ago by Switzerland-based Rieter and is still being produced in accordance with the original specification. This is strong proof of its solid performance that has been validated over a long period of time. Depending on the operating conditions, some internal parts of the guiding arm are subject to wear-and-tear and therefore need to be replaced with new parts.

In addition to an original P3-1 guiding arm replacement, Rieter also offers a refurbishment kit which helps restore the original performance. The Rieter service engineers recently successfully implemented the refurbishment kit at the Orta Anadolu spinning mill in Turkey.

After the installation was completed, spinning mill Manager Orhan Herdem said to the Rieter service engineers: “As a result of the guiding arm refurbishment, there is an improvement in both quality and efficiency. With the support of the technical service from Rieter, the machine operation is now more economical.”

Rieter recommends refurbishing the guiding arm after eight to 10 years to ensure uniform and consistent load across the machine. Replacing worn out and aged parts can help restore the original performance of the drafting system. A new guiding arm enables a more effective load distribution, consistent drafting and output yarn quality. The improvements in terms of load uniformity and performance can be witnessed before and after the repair service conducted by Rieter service engineers (See Figure 1).

India-based Sreedhara Textiles was experiencing guiding arm load variation, quality and productivity issues in its Rieter ring spinning machines. These were not the only concerns Rieter’s service engineers had to contend with. They also were asked to find the most economical solution.

After the guiding arm refurbishment at the company’s ring spinning machines was completed, the factory manager, S.J. Aananthakumar, expressed his satisfaction to the Rieter service engineers: “The individual parts for the guiding arm refurbishment of our ring spinning machines were delivered with perfect packing and on time. The costs of this repair service offering are characterized by high price performance ratio, and ultimately, we are very satisfied by the consistent quality and productivity levels which were achieved. We are experiencing fewer breakages per 100 spindles per hours, imperfections and Autoconer clearer cuts per 100 kilometers.”

July/August 2022