Recycling textile waste into secondary material: Can it lower the global environmental impacts? The answer through Life Cycle Assessment

Annual Textile ETP ConferenceCircular – Bio-based – Digital: The keys to Europe’s Textile Future

24-25 April 2019, Brussels (Belgium)

Vanessa Pasquet, Quantis

TOO MUCH TEXTILE IS WASTED EVERY YEAR WITHOUT VALORISATION…

… a perfect representation

of linear economy

How can we shift this linear model towards

more circularity?

TWO OBJECTIVES OF THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Reduce waste Reduce

resource extraction

TWO OBJECTIVES OF THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Reduce waste Reduce

resource extraction

RESYNTEX projectINNOVATIVE INDUSTRIAL SYMBIOSIS

BY GENERATING SECONDARY RAW

MATERIALS

BY USINGTEXTILE WASTE

Diving into theRESYNTEX project

ALL THE SUCCESS FACTORS FOR AN AMBITIOUS PROJECT

Funding from the EUROPEAN UNION’S HORIZON 2020

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION PROGRAMME under grant agreement 641942

Multi-sectorial international expertise

20partners

48months

Textile for 2nd

hand productsTextile for re-use

(insulation, wipers, …)

THE CURRENT SITUATIONNO RECYCLING OF TEXTILE WASTE

Textile wasteincinerated / landfilled

Manualsorting

Resin Bioethanol PET granulate bottled grade

Value added chemicals

Textile for 2nd hand products

Textile for re-use (insulation, wipers, …)

RESYNTEXconcept

A NEW CONCEPT FOR RECYCLING TEXTILE WASTE

Textile wasteincinerated / landfilled

Manualsorting

LCA and LCC combined results

LCALife Cycle Assessment

LCCLife Cycle Costing

TOOLS FOR MEASURINGTHE RESYNTEX DIFFERENCE

LCA AND LCC SYSTEM FOR REFERENCE AND RESYNTEX

Reference system RESYNTEX system

RESYNTEX plant size: 10’000 t textile waste input Energy, water and infrastructures only partly optimized

Exploring RESYNTEXLCA and LCC results

RESYNTEX SYSTEMBOUNDARIES AND FUNCTIONAL UNIT

FUNCTIONAL UNIT

The treatment of 1 tonne of non-wearable non-reusable textile waste and the production of end-products:

▪ phenol-formaldehyde resin for wood panel,

▪ bioethanol, ▪ value added chemicals,▪ PET granulate,

Textile waste collection and transport to textile

sorting facility

Manual sorting

END-PRODUCTS

RESYNTEX automated sorting

and mechanicalpre-treatment

RESYNTEX chemical and biochemical process

End-productsynthesis

Bioethanol

PETsynthesis

Resinsynthesis

System boundaries

Bioethanol

PET granulate,bottle grade

Peptide-modified phenol-formaldehyde resin

Value-addedchemicals

INTERMEDIATE PRODUCTS

Cellulosic fibers (cotton, denim, cell-PET mix)

Polyester fibers(PET, cell-PET mix)

Protein hydrolysate (wool, silk)

Polyamidefibers

Textile for second-hand product

Textile for re-use (insulation, wipers, …)

Decontaminated blended textile waste

Glucosejuice

Terephtalicacid

Peptidepowder

Non-wearable,non-reusable

textile

OligomersChemicals synthesis

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 120%

Greenhousegas

emissions(kg CO2-eq)

Waterwithdrawal

(m3)

Costs (EUR)

Total environmental impacts and total costs

Contribution to env. impacts and costs

Textile waste collection and transport to textile sorting facilityTextile manual sortingTextile semi-automated sorting and pre-treatmentRESYNTEX biochemical process

RESYNTEX SYSTEMCONTRIBUTION ANALYSIS

Main contributors▪ (Bio)chemical process: steam, chemicals (e.g.

NaOH, Na2S2O4, HCl) and enzymes ▪ End-product synthesis: protein modified

phenol-formaldehyde resin (with partial replacement of phenol by proteins) and ethylene glycol production for PET synthesis

Key opportunities to reduce impacts▪ Further optimisation (potential energy

recovery and water treatment and recycling)▪ Further improvement of yields▪ Type and amount of chemicals used (potential

recycling)

Textile waste collection and transport to textile sorting facilityTextile manual sortingRESYNTEX textile semi-automated sorting and pre-treatmentRESYNTEX chemical and biochemical processEnd-products synthesis

Life cycle costs(EUR)

Water withdrawal(m3)

GHGemissions(kg CO2 eq.)

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Bioethanol from cell

Bioethanol from denim

Bioethanol from cell-PET

PET from cell-PET

PET from PET

Resin from protein

Chemicals from PA

Gre

enh

ou

se g

as

em

issi

ons

Impacts per tonne of end-product

Reference RESYNTEX with water and energy integration

PRODUCT-BASED APPROACHCOMPARATIVE RESULTS OF THE END-PRODUCTS

The RESYNTEX value-added chemicals, resin and PET result in lower GHG emissions than the reference system.

The bioethanol from the RESYNTEX system results in increased GHG emissions than the reference bioethanol per t of product.

→ Importance of selecting • the right end-products!• the most promising outputs and consider

alternative route for the others (e.g., cellulosic fibers: mechanical recycling or incineration with energy recovery)

Some limitations: reference system is mature and fully optimised, while the RESYNTEX system is a young technology which needs to evolve and be further optimised

Reference systemRESYNTEX system

GHG emissions/ton end-product (kg CO2 eq.)

ChemicalsFrom PA

ResinFrom protein

PETFrom PET

PETFrom cell-PET

BioethanolFrom cell-PET

BioethanolFrom denim

BioethanolFrom cellulose

0% 50% 100%

RESYNTEX SCORES EVOLUTIONFROM UNOPTIMISED TO FULLY OPTIMISED

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Life cycle costs(EUR)

Water withdrawal(m3)

GHGemissions(kg CO2 eq.)

0% 50% 100%

RESYNTEX industrial scale, partly optimisedRESYNTEX industrial scale, fully optimised

RESYNTEX industrial scale, not optimised

The first level of optimisation (partial energy, water and infrastructure optimization) led to a first significant reduction of impacts.

Further optimisation and integration of energy and water, together with chemical optimization will lead to further reduction in the impacts (on-going experiments on pilot plant, potential further optimisation with industrial symbiosis).

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RESYNTEX PROJECTFuture research beyond RESYNTEX

• Optimisations achieved or expected from pilot experiments:– Improved recycling of water– Additional energy recovery– Improved recycling of enzymes– Removal of discoloration for some materials

• Alternative end-products to be investigated– Cellulose fibers: terpenoids, PLA, lyocell, fiber

to fiber, etc.– PET fibers: TA of different quality, recovery of

ethylene glycol

• Use of the RESYNTEX process with similar approach for other types of waste

Thank you!Vanessa Pasquet, Quantis (vanessa.pasquet@quantis-intl.com)

For more information on the project:

RESYNTEX Project Coordination: Vittoria TROPPENZ (SOEX) – Vittoria.troppenz@soexgroup.de

or visit http://www.resyntex.eu