From the Sector

Two GRAPHERGIA research teams received poster awards at Graphene Week 2026 for work on energy harvesting, sensing and storage. One project uses graphene-based triboelectric nanogenerators in aerospace composite structures to convert mechanical movement into electrical signals for real-time monitoring.

The second development is directly textile-based. Researchers at FORTH/ICE-HT use a laser-assisted process to convert graphene-oxide-coated polyester textiles into conductive architectures.
Continuous conductive tracks serve as current collectors or electrodes for triboelectric nanogenerators, while laser-patterned interdigitated structures form micro-flexible supercapacitor electrodes.

The objective is to couple energy generation and storage in one self-charging textile platform that can support IoT integration. The work therefore moves beyond attaching electronics to fabric: the textile itself becomes part of the electrical architecture.
The project is funded under Horizon Europe and brings together partners including Adamant Composites and FORTH/ICE-HT.

Recover has launched Recover™One, a range of ready-to-spin blends made entirely from recycled cotton and recycled polyester. Cotton-to-polyester ratios can be adjusted for different applications, and the material can be supplied as fiber blends or as fabric through Recover’s supply-chain partners.

The technical point is color management. Recover combines the original colors of textile-waste feedstocks with color-matched, dope-dyed recycled polyester through an intimate blending process.
The company says this creates consistent solid, heather and mélange options without a downstream overdyeing stage, reducing processing time and avoiding an additional wet-finishing step.

Applications cited include single jersey, French terry and fleece. Recover also refers to previously verified life-cycle assessments for its recycled cotton, but the new development is the system-level combination of recycled inputs, predefined color and spinning-ready consistency rather than recycled cotton alone.

Editorial relevance: Very high – establishes a global baseline for available spinnable textile-to-textile recycled fiber and quantifies the gap between waste availability and usable output.

Textile Exchange has published a first global methodology for estimating textile-to-textile recycled fiber availability for apparel and home textiles. Developed with Fashion for Good, Reverse Resources and TEXroad, the framework combines available waste volumes with collection, sorting, processing and technology constraints to estimate how much material can actually become spinnable fiber.

The analysis projects recyclable textile feedstocks to increase from roughly 10 million tonnes in 2025 to around 15 million tonnes by 2030. Yet the quantity of recycled spinnable fiber is estimated at only 1–1.5 million tonnes in 2025, rising to approximately 3–5 million tonnes by 2030.

The scope covers post-industrial and post-consumer textiles and both mechanical and chemical recycling of cotton, polyester, nylon, manmade cellulosics, wool and and blends.
Textile Exchange stresses that the figures are directional: data quality remains uneven, and future editions are intended to incorporate more primary data from recyclers and suppliers.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a route in which lignin replaces a substantial share of the polyacrylonitrile (PAN) normally used in carbon fibre. Lignin is generated in large volumes as a by-product of pulp and biorefinery operations. The university reports that PAN use can be cut by half, with corresponding potential reductions in production cost and emissions.

The central technical challenge is mechanical performance. The team functionalises single-walled carbon nanotubes and incorporates them into the lignin-PAN matrix. The nanotubes act as nanoscale reinforcement and promote stronger crystalline alignment during spinning and thermal treatment.

The precursor solution is wet-spun, tension-assisted heat-treated and carbonised. The researchers report that the resulting renewable carbon fibre can reach quality requirements relevant to automotive manufacturing. Aerospace, energy infrastructure, sporting goods and wind energy are cited as additional markets.