Material recycling, where the material can be directly reused, involves mechanical and physical processes. Thermal and chemical processes aim to recover components of the material or energy.
In general, the following recycling methods can be distinguished for textile recycling:
In physical recycling, the material is also used directly. The textile structure is dissolved using a suitable solvent. This solvent is chosen according to the fiber material. All fibers can dissolve in the solution, or only a portion, which can then be filtered out. The dissolved fibers are cleaned at the molecular level with the solvents, and the polymer can then be precipitated.
The recycled material is a purified polymer and can be spun again.
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In mechanical recycling, textile products are mechanically shredded until the target material (fluff, fibers, or fill material) is produced, which can be reused and processed. After sorting, there is often a pretreatment step involving washing or chemical additives before the actual mechanical treatment is carried out. Today, tearing is the most commonly used technology for this process. This method allows relatively small quantities to be recycled, which is advantageous for color sorting.
The biggest challenge is achieving suitable separation of the input materials from the textile product. For example, the maximum resolution of a dense fabric poses a trade-off with resulting fiber length reduction.
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Thermal Recycling
Thermal recycling involves heating or melting processes to recover polymers or residual components.
It mainly differentiates between thermomechanical and thermochemical processes (gasification, pyrolysis, catalytic cracking): In thermomechanical processes, the polymer is melted in a way that the chains remain intact, whereas in thermochemical processes, it is broken down into low-molecular-weight components.
This involves melting and extrusion processes for recycling thermoplastic textiles, such as polyester, polyamide, polypropylene, etc., into pellets (regranulate) and/or new fibers. The process is cost-effective, efficient, nearly emission-free, and easily implementable. Spinning usually requires the addition of new material, and the final fiber then contains only a limited amount of recycled material.
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This is a recycling process that utilizes partial oxidation reactions to break down polymers into monomers, which can be used as raw materials for the chemical industry. Producing fuel for energy generation or other combustion or energy recovery processes is not considered recycling de jure.
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Chemical Recycling
Chemical recycling differs from physical recycling in that the polymer's basic structure is altered. This allows for the recovery of raw materials only. Through an energy-intensive polymerization step, the recycled materials can be reused in plastic products. Recycled materials still primarily consist of pure substances.
Cellulosic fibers, primarily derived from wood (spruce or beech), other plants, or waste from the cotton industry, are the only natural polymers used in the technical textile industry due to their versatility. Polymer materials can be reintroduced directly into the textile value chain through polymer recycling. This process can also lead to significant reductions in CO2 equivalents generated during the production of natural polymers. Water consumption for clothing made from cotton is the subject of ongoing discussions.
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Depolymerization processes completely break down polymer chains into monomers. These monomers are separated and purified before being used in the repolymerization process to create new polymers of virgin quality.
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