Recycling Textiles. Anellotech to Advance Development of Tex-TCat™, an Efficient Recycling Technology for Mixed Waste Textiles.
Anellotech plans to begin advanced lab testing and scale-up for Tex-TCat™, an innovative recycling solution to the growing problem of textile waste. Tex-TCat fluid bed catalytic pyrolysis technology is the first that efficiently recycles mixed waste textiles directly into the same chemical feedstocks (including benzene, toluene and xylenes) that are used today to make virgin synthetics like polyester and nylon — providing a closed-loop, fiber-to-fiber solution to today’s textile recycling problems.
Tex-TCat delivers a direct pathway from mixed textile waste to secondary materials (BTX) instead of intermediates like pyrolysis oil. And, the technology involves no incineration or burning of waste feedstock.
Lab-scale studies have demonstrated that Tex-TCat™ can process a variety of common textile materials that are incinerated or landfilled today — including cotton, polyester, nylon, elastane, acrylic and polyurethane as well as blends of these and other commonly used textile materials.
The fashion industry produces 100 billion garments each year. Although the call for circular fashion is increasingly urgent, 92 million tonnes of waste still end up in landfills.
This waste is due to the lack of commercially viable recycling technologies for low-quality and mixed textiles as well as textile blends. While garments like 100% cotton or polyester are recyclable with legacy technologies, Tex-TCat is a recycling solution that complements mono-fiber garments as well as all non-recyclable blends and functional textiles.
Tex-TCat’s unique features include:
– Recycles synthetic and natural fibers as well as blends into valuable chemicals, effectively improving circular economics and lowering global greenhouse gas emissions.
– Plans to operate at scale with the first plant able to process ~200,000 tonnes per year, and subsequent plants as large as one million tonnes, depending on feedstock availability.
“Tex-TCat has the potential to divert large quantities of previously unrecyclable textiles from landfills and provide major brands, through their existing suppliers, with recycled content,” says David Sudolsky, President and CEO of Anellotech. “The technology promises to be a key enabler of the textile industry’s work to become more sustainable.”
The development program’s next steps include optimizing the feedstock preparation for efficient reactor feeding as well as additional lab studies that will lead to long-term trials in Anellotech’s fully automated 0.5- tonne-per-day process demonstration plant. The company is currently seeking forward-looking companies to join them in accelerating the development and commercial implementation of the Tex-TCat technology.
About Anellotech
Founded in 2008, Anellotech is a sustainable technology company focused on commercializing the innovative production of cost-competitive renewable chemicals and fuels from non-food biomass or waste plastics. It’s fully-developed and patented Bio-TCat™ technology is an efficient thermal catalytic process for converting biomass into benzene, toluene and xylene, which are chemically identical to their petroleum-based counterparts. In addition to BTX, Bio-TCat produces heavier aromatics, which can be used to make high-quality biofuels blendstock for transportation fuel to help decarbonize transportation fuels supply chains.
Anellotech’s R&D team is now focused on Plas-TCat™, an emerging process technology that converts mixed waste plastics into commodity chemicals such as olefins and aromatics, the primary chemicals used to make plastic packaging and other products.
