ForTex -Ecoefficient Textile Fibers from the Forest

Purpose and goal

Textiles from wood-derived fibres can to a large extent compensate for the increasing demand in textile fibres globally as the cultivation of cotton is increasingly seen as a burden for the environment. Current regenerated cellulose fibres have serious drawbacks, whereas our CelluNova process seems promising. The goal in ForTex has been accomplished as the process is well optimised and required data for building a demonstration plant is collected, in order to take the next step towards commercialisation of Swedish process technology in a field with a strong growth potential.

Results and expected effects

The CelluNova-fibre has been developed in lab generating good performance of the textile fibre benchmarked against existing wood-based fibres on the market (such as viscose), to reach a competitiveness in technical, economic and environmental terms. This also demonstrates high potential for the new fibre considering the environmental and cost profile compared to the best-in-class existing cotton. Competitiveness of Swedish companies is expected on a global market will improve through a future industrial process for production of the next generation wood based textile fibres.

Approach and implementation

ForTex has been a cross-sectorial project combining the urge for new business models in the forest industry with the demand by the textile industry for new textile fibres. The achieved fibre process has been iteratively refined by work in labscale, followed up by computer modelling of processes and energy demand, LCA calculations, investment and running cost estimates, combined with experimental validations important as a basis for the future demonstration plant. All parties in the project have actively been engaged by contributing with their knowledge into the process value chain.