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

全球纺织品消费继续同比增长。纺织品消费的这种快速增长要求更多地利用资源以及大量的能源和水来生产原始材料和加工成纺织品。这导致自然不可再生资源的枯竭，并极大地增加了碳排放，这是不可持续的。目前，只有一小部分纺织品被重复使用或回收，而数百万吨纺织品，包括大部分混合纺织品(由一种以上不同的纤维制成)最终被送往垃圾填埋场或被焚烧。纺织业目前正致力于向循环经济转型，摆脱目前采取-制造-使用-处置的线性系统。虽然，长期使用和再利用被认为比升级和回收更有益，但后者可能有助于减少对行业的负面环境影响，因为它可以减少原始纺织纤维的生产，并避免供应链中的密集加工。迫切需要研究废旧纺织品的更新、回收和再利用技术，以实现纺织品的循环利用。拟议的项目旨在挑战目前与纺织品回收、回收和再利用有关的问题，使宝贵的资源尽可能地得到利用。生物技术的进步为探索基于酶的加工从混纺织物中回收和再循环纺织纤维提供了机会。该项目的目的是开发以酶为基础的生物技术，从羊毛混纺织物中回收宝贵的资源，特别是羊毛/合成和羊毛/麻纤维混纺织物，用于回收和再利用，以支持纺织行业向循环转型。该项目的重点将是利用生物技术重新制造消费后和工业后的纺织废物，用于新的用途，方法是分别使用蛋白酶和转谷氨酰胺酶在具有质地效果的织物上创造新的表面图案，或修复受损的羊毛纤维以供织物重复使用。还将开发新的基于酶的生物技术，将韧皮(亚麻、大麻和荨麻)、合成纤维(尼龙、聚酯)和羊毛纤维从混纺织物中分离出来，用于将韧皮纤维升级为棉化纤维，并将合成纤维回收到纤维中。提取的有价值的羊毛蛋白多肽将被用于开发可机洗的新型附加值羊毛。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总部位于英国、拥有全球影响力的行业合作伙伴：一家室内装潢面料合同制造商、一家羊毛布料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，并能够与可持续循环发展保持一致，从而在扩大规模时产生经济和环境影响，为实现联合国可持续发展目标(SDGs)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).