Building on concepts tested in TSB project 710196, we will build a small demonstration unit for efficient extraction of fibres from flax and hemp crops. Machinery to produce fibre suitable for high quality textiles opens up potential for us “WK” to supply EU and North American processors. Our solution has cost, manpower and quality advantages over current equipment manufacturers but lacks demonstration capabilities (such as those of La Roche) where potential customers can see the plant in operation and vary components used to select optimum solution for their specific purposes. Seeing equipment in operation is an important part of the purchasing process for buyers in this market. Demand for materials from renewable resources has created huge potential for textile quality fibres. A major barrier to using more hemp and flax is the lack of efficient processing equipment to separate fibres from other plant materials. Current high volume processes damage fibres so they are only suitable for lower value markets as well as high levels of waste. Processes that currently give higher quality short fibre do not offer volumes needed to commoditise these products. Linen, the most popular bast fibre for apparel, is not relevant in this context as it is a long fibre. But companies with expertise in growing and processing linen may be increasingly interested in switching to short fibre as EU subsidies for linen have now been phased out - making linen economically unviable for many companies. WK, with leading UK scientists and farmers, developed a small decorticator to demonstrate that UK crops could meet quality requirements for higher value markets. TSB project 710196 tested new concepts that give the WK decorticator further advantages and a demonstration plant now needs to be built. Our target is a flexible demonstration unit to show the efficiency, quality and flexibility of the WK system in order to win new business, particularly targeting current market leaders.

We will develop efficient processing equipment for the extraction of fibres from flax crops (with adaption this could also process hemp). Machinery that delivers fibre suitable for high quality textiles will open up potential for Wilson Knowles “WK” to supply a small number of UK processors and many more North American and mainland EU processors. Global demand for materials from renewable resources has created massive potential for textile quality fibres. A major barrier to using bast fibres (hemp and flax) is the lack of efficient mechanical processing equipment to separate the fibre from the other plant materials (“Decortication”). Current high volume processes damage the fibres so they are only suitable for lower value markets and have high levels of waste that reduce fibre yields. Processes that deliver higher quality short fibre do not offer the volumes needed to commoditise these products. Linen is the most popular bast fibre for apparel but not relevant in this context as linen is a long fibre, volumes are low and it is (in Europe) a heavily subsidised crop. WK worked with leading UK scientists and farmers to develop a small scale decorticator to demonstrate that UK grown crops could meet quality requirements for higher value markets. This was done successfully but there are significant developments required to increase processing rates, capacity and efficiency to the level where Wilson Knowles can build commercial decortication plants. We will further develop and test novel concepts for 3 key elements to give processing capacity of up to 2.5 tonnes per hour of flax straw: 1. Efficient straw opener and initial removal of up to 20% of non-fibre materials 2. Short decortication sequence based on a novel ‘pinned cylinder’ (PC) combing and ‘straw working’ machine. 3. Modifications to step cleaners to process inputs from ‘new’ stages 1 and 2.