Advanced Recycling - The next generation of flame retardant fabrics

The long-term goal in the development of sustainable products is to enter a closed-loop economy. Advanced recycling opens possibilities for approaching this goal. 

Indorama Ventures has launched an innovative Trevira CS product development in which flame-retardant fibers and filament yarns are made from advanced recycled raw material. The products are made from 100% recycled material and are available on a commercial scale. Currently, PET material from the packaging industry is used here, which is not suitable to be re-used in the manufacture of bottles/packaging material. 

Chemical recycling involves depolymerization, a sequence of chemical reactions in which the polymer chains are broken down again into their original components, i.e. the monomers. The raw material we obtained from the recycling process is comparable to the original material and can be used again in high-quality products. 

The greatest advantage, however, lies in the potential that this approach unlocks for the future. Today, the chemically recycled raw material used to produce flame-retardant Trevira® fibers and filament yarns is obtained from PET waste from the packaging industry, but in principle it could come from almost any other recycled PET material, even from textiles. 

With these first steps, the path to a circular economy is underway - waste can be avoided and resources conserved. In future, it may be possible to use advanced recycling to obtain raw materials for new textiles from textile waste.