Overcoming supply chain challenges is often a dance of two steps forward, one step back.
As the European Union-funded project BioFibreLoop made a breakthrough in lignin-based fiber spinning, finding reliable feedstock source(s) followed. Now, the consortium is considering how those concerns can “revolutionize” the European textile industry to build a greener, stronger market—and future.
“Our good research results on the use of lignin in textile products together with the great market potential will strongly motivate the establishment of biorefineries for suitable lignin variants in Europe,” said Thomas Stegmaier, the DITF’s technical coordinator.
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BioFibreLoop’s second consortium meeting was held last month in Tampere, Helsinki, and marked a significant technical milestone in the project’s first year. The project’s partner, the German Institutes for Textile and Fibre Research (DITF), successfully spun fibers from lignin blended with cellulose.
That breakthrough came with a minor drawback, however. Unlike cellulose, lignin is not a standardized raw material. Which means that the team now is tasked with a uniquely-particular challenge: securing a reliable supply of suitable lignin from suppliers in European wood refineries.
“Not all lignin basal types are suitable for textile applications and recent market changes have made sourcing even more difficult,” BioFibreLoop said. “Several small supplier companies founded a few years ago with special high-quality lignin types no longer exist; larger ones often do not produce the required grades.”
Basal lignin—aka lignin that’s been extracted but not further modified—varies widely in properties and therefore in quality, depending on the extraction process, as well. To address this, DITF conducted a “thorough analysis” of available suppliers, testing material suitability using rheological studies—more specifically, the ability to draw fibers in the thermoplastic spinning process and film forming in coating.
And, given BioFibreLoop’s ambition to see its biobased textiles adopted by 20 percent of the textile industry, the lignin market’s volatility poses a tangible risk, the organization said, noting that the development of a “robust lignin supply chain” goes beyond the project’s success.
“Lignin suppliers have a chance to secure stable demand for large quantities by introducing lignin into a mass textile market,” BioFibreLoop said. “As more lignin-based products might enter the market—also supported by European legislation favoring biobased products—there’s a high potential to build resilient, circular supply networks.”
While some small companies have developed high-quality lignin variants over the (albeit recent) years, they’ve since shuttered. But, as new wood refinery plants are currently being built (or commissioned) in Europe, BioFibreLoop said the consortium’s need for lignin supply will, most likely, be covered.
“This development would strengthen the biobased supply networks of the European textile industry,” the project said, “increasing the resilience of value chains in textile industry to external factors.”
For context, BioFibreLoop is working to make the EU textile industry more sustainable with a focus on outdoor-, active- and workwear.
Recyclable textiles with bio-inspired functionalization will be produced from biobased materials, the consortium said. The collaborative project was launched last July by the DITF. It hopes to see biobased textiles adopted by 20 percent of the textile industry, as funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Program, involving 13 partners from nine countries. With a budget of roughly $7.3 million euros (about $6.5 million was funded by the EU), the consortium’s bio-adoption goal is part of the project’s larger, broader effort to develop recyclable and functional textiles from renewable inputs like lignin, cellulose and polylactic acid (PLA).
By 2035, BioFibreLoop expects to have a “significant impact” on the textile industry by generating revenues of nearly $9.9 billion (8.5 billion euros) and creating 3,200 full-time jobs.
