Dr Anton Firth & Dr Aida Rafat
Co-founders DyeRecycle
We are beginning to see an increasing awareness of chemical circularity
Founded in 2020 in London, DyeRecycle develops an innovative dyeing fibres technology using recycled dye from textile waste. Co-founders Dr. Anton Firth and Dr. Aida Rafat speak to Fibre2Fashion about their circular chemical technology and how it benefits the planet.
Is it possible to decolour textile waste and reuse old dyes? How is it done?
Dr. Anton Firth: Thanks to DyeRecycle, now it is possible! We have developed a novel chemical process which allows us to effectively transfer the dyes from textile waste onto new material. This process works in two simple stages. Firstly, we heat the waste in our (environmentally benign) solvent, which extracts the dyes and thus reduces the colour of the waste. In the second step, we add new material to the dye-rich solvent and heat under slightly modified conditions, thus dyeing the new fibres. At the end of the process, our solvent can be re-used, making it fully circular.
Who all are your customers? What all does DyeRecycle offer them?
Dr. Aida Rafat: When licensing our customers will be fashion brands and/or their supply chain partners. When operating our own plant our customers for the dyeing service will be fashion brands, and our customers for the decolourised textiles will be either textile recyclers or possibly the fashion brands themselves.
For whom are your technology/products best suited? Are they small- and medium-sized companies?
Dr. Aida Rafat: When operating our own plant, our dyeing service will be well-suited to fashion brands of all sizes as we will be able to offer competitive dyeing costs. For eventual licensing, however, the most suitable customers will be textile manufacturers with a high degree of vertical integration, which will naturally tend to be larger manufacturers.
How new is the circular chemical technology to decolour textile waste?
Dr. Aida Rafat: Circular chemical decolourisation of textile waste is very new. To date, any decolourisation is mostly done using harsh chemicals which destroy the extracted dyes and often degrade the fibre quality. The full circularity of DyeRecycle is part of what makes us unique in the current market: fibres are kept intact, and dyes are recovered and re-used.
Sometimes recycling may consume more energy than making a new one. So, on what parameters is recycling decided?
Dr. Aida Rafat: This is a very important topic, as processes which are marketed as sustainable can have worse overall impacts than the ‘traditional’ processes they aim to replace. As a result, thorough life cycle analysis is crucial to evaluating new recycling processes.
Within the textile industry, direct re-use of old clothing (i.e., extending the lifetime of the garments) is the most sustainable option. However, eventually all clothes get to the end of their functional lifetime, and this is where closed-loop recycling becomes important. Two critical parameters to evaluate the sustainability of a recycling process are the reductions in global warming potential and water consumption relative to manufacturing new garments. An external life cycle analysis of the DyeRecycle process concluded that it offers a 57 per cent reduction in the former, and 65 per cent reduction in the latter. We are therefore confident in saying that we are offering a sustainable circular process for textile waste utilisation.
Even for removing nail polish, you need to use some chemical. How do you decolour fibres without the use of harsh chemicals?
Dr. Anton Firth: Our solution is indeed a chemical process, but the principal chemical which we use is our novel solvent. Due to its non-volatile nature, as well as its low ecotoxicity and human toxicity, it is considered environmentally benign. The use of chemicals is not inherently a negative, but environmentally safe chemicals should be used whenever possible, and always in a responsible manner to minimise any environmental effects.
Please elaborate on the impact of that your technology can have on our planet.
Dr. Anton Firth: Our product can have a significant positive impact for three main reasons:
Our dyeing process is non-aqueous, which means we have a significantly smaller water footprint (65 per cent lower). Considering 20 per cent of all global wastewater is currently generated by dyeing processes, this is a very substantial saving.
Removal of colour from textile waste facilitates recycling of the fibres as they become far more homogeneous. In this way, we can help play a part in tackling the problem of the skyrocketing quantities of textile waste.
Our process offers a significantly reduced chemical footprint due to the recycling of the dyes, and the lack of required auxiliary chemicals during our dyeing process. Overall, our chemical consumption is 85 per cent lower than current practice. Furthermore, as over 99 per cent of all textile dyes are currently produced from petrochemicals, we are able to substantially reduce the associated fossil fuel consumption.
The combined impacts of points 2 and 3 also lead to a global warming potential which is 57 per cent lower than current processes.
Does technology exist today to recycle blended textiles too? If not, what is the best way to recycle apparel made out of blended yarns?
Dr. Anton Firth: Blended textiles do certainly present a challenge in terms of recycling as they generally need to be separated for closed-loop recycling. Certain companies are working on chemical solutions to this, such as WornAgain or PurFi. In terms of our process, we process natural and synthetic textiles slightly differently. As of now, we can process blends of synthetic textiles, or blends of natural fibres, but we hope to expand to natural-synthetic mixtures in future (e.g. polycotton).
How did DyeRecycle come into existence? What is its business model?
Dr. Anton Firth: DyeRecycle originally started when Aida and I were doing our PhDs at Imperial College London. It began as a side-project of Aida’s: after watching a documentary on fast fashion she decided to perform some experiments on textile waste in the lab. Following an initial proof of concept study, Aida approached me and we co-founded DyeRecycle with an aim to further develop and commercialise the technology.
Our business model is comprised of two stages. In the long-term, we want to license the process to fashion brands’ supply chain partners, and to vertically integrated textile manufacturers. This would allow the license holders to incorporate the DyeRecycle technology into their operations, improving their sustainability and also offering cost savings.
However, as this is a chemical process targeting large throughput volumes, we first need to demonstrate the technology at scale before we can begin licensing, and thus need operate our own full-scale demonstration plant. During this phase (and as we scale up), our plan is to partner with sustainability-focused fashion brands. Our business model would be to offer a competitively priced sustainable dyeing service by processing their pre-consumer textile waste. The processed waste stream (i.e., partly or fully decolourised waste fibres) could also either be sold back to the brands to re-use within their operations, or sold on to textile recyclers.
Going forward, how do you see the concept of ‘circular economy’ evolving further?
Dr. Anton Firth: In recent years, circular economy has focused on material circularity, which is logical as it generally accounts for the largest proportion of the mass (particularly in the textile industry). However, we are beginning to see an increasing awareness of chemical circularity, which is something which DyeRecycle is certainly contributing to. Circularity of all inputs and outputs is the ultimate goal, and represents the next logical step.
Published on: 01/04/2022
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
