Public Funding for Dyerecycle Ltd

The fashion and textile industries are causing extreme pollution at both ends of their supply chain through dyeing operations and textile waste accumulation. At present, textile recycling requires clean and homogenous inputs while textile dyeing is highly unsustainable, accounting for 20% of global wastewater pollution while over 99% of dyes used are fossil-derived. These problems are linked as dyes make textile waste heterogeneous, forcing mechanical recyclers to blend colours, bleach or overdye (to brown or black) and chemical recyclers to decolour their input stream, creating more expense and waste. DyeRecycle is a new chemical technology that decolourises textile waste and also enables recycling of the dyes, creating a novel circular dyeing concept. The process input is coloured textile waste, from which the dyes are extracted into an environmentally benign solvent. This removes the colour from the textiles without damaging the polymer fibres, producing strong, homogeneous decoloured fibres that are much easier to recycle. The concentrated, dye-rich solvent is then used as a dyeing bath to transfer the extracted dyes into new fabric, creating a recycled dyeing concept. This project aims to progress the core technology from its current state at bench-scale, dyeing small pieces of fabric, to pilot-scale, efficiently dyeing full-size fabrics/garments. All aspects of the extraction and dyeing elements will be assessed by commercial partners, including the quality, strength and suitability of decoloured fibres for recycling, colour strength, depth and consistency and also key process parameters such as fabric washing, solvent recovery and energy usage. Findings from process scale-up will greatly aid DyeRecycle in validating the company's value proposition within the industry and prepare for the design of future commercial-scale facilities, enabling a technology development roadmap that will bring circular dyeing into the marketplace. DyeRecycle will also strengthen partnerships within the textile and fashion industries and embed the company and technology within the sustainable fashion space. The project outputs will enable sufficient samples for testing and validation at a scale reasonable for industry expectations. This will enable DyeRecycle to demonstrate market demand, customer feedback and demonstrate traction, enabling future investments to accelerate the commercialisation of the technology and transform circular dyeing into a commercial reality.

Fashion and textile industries are causing extreme pollution at both ends of their supply chain through dyeing operations and textile waste accumulation. Textile recycling requires clean and homogenous inputs and textile dyeing needs to be more sustainable. One of the barriers to effective textile recycling is the presence of dyes in textile waste.Dyes make textile waste heterogeneous, meaning mechanical recyclers must intelligently blend colours, and chemical recyclers must decolour the material prior processing. At the other end of the supply chain, dyeing processes accounts for 20% of global wastewater pollution, and over 99% of dyes used are derived from fossil fuels. DyeRecycle is a new chemical technology creating decolorization pretreatment for textile waste while also enabling dye recycling from waste fibres -- an innovative circular dyeing concept. The process takes in colored textile waste, and extracts the dyes into an environmentally benign solvent. This removes the colour from the waste without degrading the material, producing homogeneous decoloured fibres that are more easily recycled. The dye-rich solvent is then used as a dyeing bath to dye new material with the recycled dyes. This project aims to progress the technology: from a bench-scale process dyeing small pieces of fabric, to a pilot-scale process able to efficiently dye full-size garments. Scale-up trials will be conducted at a 25-L scale, processing pre-consumer textile waste provided by UK-based textile manufacturer. These trials will demonstrate textile waste decolourization and subsequent dyeing of full-size garments. Several key metrics will be assessed for the decolored material, newly dyed material, as well as multiple scaled-up process parameters. Decolored materials will be assessed for their mechanical and chemical properties and to test their recyclability. Newly dyed material will be characterised in terms of its colour fastness as well as the consistency of dyeing within and across batches. Findings from process scale-up will help us validate our value proposition and design of a future pilot plant, as well as to strengthen the process business case and further develop partnerships within the sustainable fashion space. The project also aims to develop lab-based prototypes and process customers samples for to demonstrate the technology using their textile waste and fabric inputs. This will create a revenue stream for DyeRecycle and improve our investment readiness level by demonstrating a clear market pull and tangible customer traction.