Approaches of enzyme-based biotechnology to achieve textiles recovery and reuse for circularity

全球纺织品消费量继续逐年增长。纺织品消费的快速增长需要更多的资源和大量的能源和水来生产原始材料和加工成纺织品。这导致了自然不可再生资源的枯竭，并大大增加了不可持续的碳排放。目前，只有少量纺织品被重复使用或回收，而数百万吨纺织品，包括很大一部分混纺纺织品（由一种以上不同纤维类型制成）最终被填埋或焚烧。纺织工业目前正在努力过渡到循环经济，摆脱目前的取-用-废的线性系统。虽然长期使用和再利用被认为比升级回收和再循环更有益，但后者可以帮助减少行业对环境的负面影响，因为它可以减少原始纺织纤维的生产，并避免供应链内的密集加工。为了实现纺织品的循环利用，迫切需要研究开发废旧纺织品的升级、回收和再利用技术。拟议的项目旨在挑战当前与纺织品回收、再循环和再利用有关的问题，以尽可能长时间地保持有价值的资源的使用。生物技术的进步为探索以酶为基础的加工，从混纺织物中回收和循环利用纺织纤维提供了机会。该项目的目的是开发基于酶的生物技术，从羊毛混纺织物中回收有价值的资源，特别是羊毛/合成纤维和羊毛/韧皮纤维混纺，用于回收和再利用，以支持纺织部门向循环过渡。该项目将侧重于利用生物技术重新制造消费后和工业后的纺织废料，以供新的应用，分别使用蛋白酶和谷氨酰胺转胺酶在织物上创造具有纹理效果的新表面图案和或修复损坏的羊毛纤维，以供织物再利用。还将开发新的基于酶的生物技术，从混合织物中分离韧皮（亚麻、大麻和荨麻）、合成（尼龙、聚酯）和羊毛纤维，将韧皮纤维升级为棉纤维，并将合成纤维再循环为纤维。提取有价值的羊毛蛋白多肽可用于开发新型高附加值机洗羊毛。这个由德蒙福特大学和拉夫堡大学合作的多学科研究项目汇集了三家位于英国的具有全球影响力的行业合作伙伴：一家合同室内装潢面料制造商、一家羊毛布制造商和一家羊毛纺织品制造和创新公司，以确保项目产出与行业的各个部门直接相关，并确保与可持续循环发展保持一致，在扩大规模后产生经济和环境影响，为实现联合国可持续发展目标（sdg）做出广泛贡献。

Global consumption of textiles continues to increase year on year. This rapid growth of textile consumption demands greater use of resources and enormous amounts of energy and water for producing virgin materials and processing into textiles. This results in the depletion of natural non-renewable resources and contributes significantly to carbon emissions, which is unsustainable. Currently, only a small amount of textiles are reused or recycled, while millions of tonnes of textiles, including a large proportion of blended textiles (made from more than one different fibre type) end up in landfills or are incinerated. The textile industry is currently working towards transitioning to a circular economy that moves away from the current linear system of take-make-use-dispose. Although, prolonged use and reuse is considered more beneficial than upcycling and recycling, the latter could help reduce the industries negative environmental impact as it could reduce virgin textile fibre production and avoid intense processing within the supply chain. Research is urgently needed to develop technologies for upcycling, recycling, and reuse of waste textiles to achieve textile circularity.The proposed project is designed to challenge current problems related to the recovery, recycling, and reuse of textiles, to keep valuable resources in-use as long as possible. Advances in biotechnology offers opportunities for the exploration of enzyme-based processing to recover and recycle textile fibres from blended fabrics. The aim of the project is to develop enzyme-based biotechnologies to recover valuable resources from wool blended fabrics, specifically wool/synthetic and wool/bast fibre blends, for recycling and reuse to support textile sectors transition towards circularity. The project will focus on utilising biotechnology to re-manufacture post-consumer and post-industrial textile waste for new applications by using the enzymes protease and transglutaminase to create new surface pattern on fabrics with textural effects and or repair damaged wool fibres for fabric reuse, respectively. Novel enzyme-based biotechnologies will also be developed to separate bast (flax, hemp and nettle), synthetic (nylon, polyester), and wool fibres, from blended fabrics for upcycling bast fibres into cottonised fibres, and recycling synthetic fibres back into fibres. Extracted valuable wool protein polypeptides will be utilised to develop novel added value machine washable wool. This multidisciplinary research project between De Montfort University and Loughborough University brings together three UK based industry partners with a global reach: a contract upholstery fabric manufacturer, a wool cloth manufacturer, and a wool textile manufacturing and innovation company to ensure project outputs are of direct relevance to various sectors of the industry and enable alignment to sustainable circular development to deliver economic and environmental impact when scaled up, widely contributing to realising the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).