From the Sector

Members of TMAS – the Swedish textile machinery association – are providing crucial manufacturing and automation services to the filtration sector, which is an often invisible but very significant part of the global textile industry.

Technical woven and nonwoven fabrics are used in a wide variety of products in filtration systems for air, gas and liquid filtration, touching on almost every facet of life in the 21st Century.

They are crucial to aerospace and road transportation and a vast range of industrial processes and also to be found in every home, hotel and institutional building in air conditioning systems and household appliances such as washing machines and vacuum cleaners.

At its Skjåk manufacturing plant in Norway, for example, Interfil manufactures an annual 230,000 air filter units from a staggering range of some 15,000 variants, with 9,000 products moving continuously through the differing stages of the plant at any time each day, and a daily finished output of 1,100 products.

It’s a similar situation at the US plant of Filtration System Products (FSP) in Farmington, St Louis, which now has a daily production of over 2,200 filter hoses and media.

Both Interfil and FSP rely on the automated material handling expertise of TMAS member Eton Systems.

Eton’s individually addressable product carriers are designed to eliminate manual transportation and minimise handling throughout a manufacturing plant, ensuring each individual product arrives at its correct position precisely when required for each separate process step.

Interfil has relied on Eton automation since 2014, when a 50-metre overhead conveyor system was designed and installed to link the company’s two production halls at the Skjåk plant, eliminating the need for manual handling and truck transport between the facilities. This has resolved the challenge of having semi-finished products made far from the final assembly area, not only improving efficiency, quality control and component traceability across all parts of production, but also increasing on-site safety due to the need for fewer trucks.

FSP has meanwhile calculated that since installing an Eton system in 2023, it has increased its production output by 60% using the same number of operators and the same working hours as with the previous manual system. Eton’s inbuilt quality system also ensures that only 100% perfect products are unloaded from the system, allowing for a much more efficient quality control process. In addition, Eton’s compact method of moving single units through the production process has saved floor space and created a safer and more ergonomic work environment.

Twenty years have in fact passed since the Group published its first Social Report in 2004, qualifying it as one of the pioneering companies in the realisation of voluntary non-financial reporting. The document measures the Group’s achievements and the actions it has taken to reduce its environmental impact, respect social values, and implement good business management practices.

Over the years, the Report has steadily evolved and is now a true sustainability report that considers all ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) aspects, showing how they are also central to the company's business strategy. Over time, many new topics have been covered, the accuracy of the data has improved and the scope has expanded to include all Group companies: over 30 sites across Asia, the Americas and Europe.

The information contained in the Sustainability Report shows RadiciGroup's strong commitment, starting with the investments made:

• between 2019 and 2023, €278 million were allocated to support the competitiveness of the Group's companies, of which €45 million in 2023 alone;
• the amount invested in the environment in 2023 and earmarked for the introduction of Best Available Techniques and performance efficiency reached €4.2 million.

Twenty years of reporting have also allowed RadiciGroup to measure the results of the investments it has made, to such an extent that in 2023 it already achieved the first goal of its "From Earth to Earth" Roadmap to 2030, i.e., a Group-wide reduction of 83% in direct CO2 equivalent emissions compared to 2011.

A significant contribution to this result came from the commissioning of an EnviNOx plant at the Radici Chimica plant in Germany, which, thanks to this technological innovation, greatly reduced its direct greenhouse gas emissions (- 92%).

The focus on responsible use of natural resources continues: In 2023, the share of electricity from renewable sources used for production processes was consolidated at 59%. The percentage of water resources saved through the practice of water recycling was also raised to 79%: some of our plants in fact reuse the same water up to 60 times and then return it to the environment. The theme of circular economy remains a cross-cutting one in many of the innovation projects, often also in a collaborative perspective with the rest of the supply chain. In particular, all Radicigroup companies work to contain the generation of scrap and waste through rigorous process management: 73% of all non-hazardous waste was recovered in 2023 and 56% of this was destined for internal recovery.

Even in the product area, measurement is fundamental, which is why RadiciGroup has long used Life Cycle Assessment studies to objectively calculate the environmental impact of its products and introduce environmental footprint mitigation solutions. This commitment is also evidenced by the numerous environmental certifications obtained by RadiciGroup plants.

With a view to promoting collaboration with customers, suppliers, scientific partners or independent experts in order to develop innovative and sustainable technologies or materials, RadiciGroup has strongly promoted open innovation projects: opportunities to stimulate a Group culture increasingly open to change and contamination with different fields of knowledge.

Regarding its employees, the Group has placed significant emphasis on training, particularly in fostering ESG awareness. In fact, in 2023, it organised its first large-scale training program focused on sustainability and circularity, engaging around 240 employees and delivering a total of 1,500 training hours. In addition, an internal human rights survey was launched, the results of which will form the basis for the formulation of a company policy on human rights and diversity.

Neste, Alterra and Technip Energies have signed a collaboration agreement to advance the circularity of plastics by providing the industry a standardized technology solution for chemical recycling, also referred to as “advanced recycling”.

The partners aim to globally offer a standardized modular solution, based on Alterra’s proprietary liquefaction technology, to parties interested in building capacity for chemical recycling.

This solution will come in the form of readily designed and engineered liquefaction plant modules, which will allow for lower pre-investment costs, accelerated implementation time, high predictability on project economics and reduced overall capital costs. Contributing to more effective execution of chemical recycling capacity projects, the solution helps the industry to reduce dependency on virgin fossil resources and accelerate the circularity of polymers and chemicals.

Alterra’s technology is a thermochemical liquefaction process, which converts hard-to-recycle plastics into a liquid hydrocarbon product. This liquid intermediate product can then be further refined into high-quality raw materials for new plastics and chemicals. As of today, Neste alone has processed more than 6,000 tons of plastic-derived feeds, including ISCC PLUS certified oil from Alterra’s industrial-scale site in Akron, Ohio.

Combining the expertise of three companies in one solution
Alterra and Neste started collaborating in chemical recycling in 2021, jointly improving aspects of Alterra’s technology and creating respective value chains. Alterra and Technip Energies started their collaboration in chemical recycling in 2022. The three companies now join efforts in a unique endeavor: Alterra and Neste will license the liquefaction technology and Technip Energies will design, engineer and deliver the standardized liquefaction plant solution to interested parties globally.

The Lenzing Group, a supplier of regenerated cellulose fibers for the textile and nonwovens industries, acquired of a minority share in TreeToTextile AB, joining the existing shareholders H&M Group, Inter IKEA Group, Stora Enso, and LSCS Invest. The group of owners is united by the strong belief that sustainably produced fibers will have the power to change the textile industry to the better.

TreeToTextile was established as a joint venture in 2014 with the objective of developing a more sustainable process for cellulosic fiber production. The company has operated pilot lines since 2015 and invested in a demonstration plant in 2021. The next step in the company's evolution will be to scale up the production and make its fibers available on the market.

Lenzing Group has produced sustainable regenerated cellulosic fibers and dissolving wood pulp for over 85 years. “We are excited about TreeToTextile’s award-winning technology and production process, which further reduces environmental impact, promotes the transition to a more sustainable future and is fully in line with our corporate strategy,” says Rohit Aggarwal, CEO of the Lenzing Group.

Dr. Roxana Barbieru, CEO of TreeToTextile, adds: “Now with the additional expertise and sustainability leadership of our new shareholder Lenzing Group, our speed to market will increase significantly, to reach our ambitious goals and become an important player in the textile industry.”

• Construction progress of world’s first PET enzymatic biorecycling plant in France: in line with production targets in 2026
• Commercial development: several Letters of Intent signed in view of licensing agreements
• Consolidated cash position of €120.7 million on 30 June 2024, plus €23.4 million in term deposits classified as financial assets. In addition, €42.5 million in public funding is expected.

CARBIOS, a pioneer in the development and industrialization of biological technologies to reinvent the life cycle of plastic and textiles, reported its operating and financial results for the first half of 2024.
The financial statements as of 30 June 2024 were approved by CARBIOS' Board of Directors.

The improvement in the financial results is mainly due to the increase in the Company’s financial income from interest on money market investments and term deposits of its cash and cash equivalents. Cash is systematically invested in risk-free, highly liquid money market products.

The decrease in financial expenses is mainly due to the capitalization of borrowing costs for the Longlaville plant.

The Group’s operating income (loss) shows a loss of €18.1 million at 30 June 2024 (€13.7 million loss at 30 June 2023).

The Group’s cash position stands at €120.7 million at 30 June 2024, plus
€23.4 million in term deposits classified as financial assets (for a total cash of €144 million after incorporation of term deposits) (€192 million at 31 December 2023).

On the basis of cashflow position to date, and the Company’s forecast operating expenses, CARBIOS considers to be able to cover its needs beyond the next 12 months. In addition, €42.5 million euros in public funding is expected.

In the first six months of 2024:

• The Group incurred €11,771 thousand in R&D expenses. The rise in R&D costs is mainly due to increased staff costs in line with the development of the Group’s various activities.
• The Group reported €1,952 thousand of Subsidies and other business income, which partially offset these R&D expenses. This item mainly consists of €1,379 thousand in tax credit for first-half 2024, of which €1,043 thousand relates to CARBIOS and €336 thousand to Carbiolice.

Finally, the Group continued to capitalize the Development expenses of its PET biorecycling project, booking a total €1,618 thousand in the first half of 2024, in accordance with IAS 38 capitalization criteria.

During this first period of the 2024 financial year, CARBIOS forged several international strategic partnerships with a view to deploying its licensing model for its technology and know-how in the field of PET plastic and textile enzymatic biorecycling.

Solvay opens consultation to cease production at Salindres site. The company announced a project to consult with its social partners to cease the production of TFA (Trifluoroacetic Acid) and its fluorinated derivatives at its Salindres site in France.

The envisaged discontinuation of these activities would result in the elimination of 68 positions assigned to the TFA and derivatives production between early 2025 and October 2025.

The plan to cease production is due to the continued negative financial performance of the Salindres plant over the past few years, driven by unfavorable market conditions that are unlikely to improve in the future.

Solvay will record provisions of approximately €50 million in Q3 2024 in relation to this project. The majority of the corresponding cash-out will occur from 2025 onwards. The guidance for 2024 underlying EBITDA and FCF remains unchanged.

In the presence of CEO Eelco Spoelder, Autoneum opened its new production facility in Pune in Western India on August 28, 2024. The opening of the third plant in the key automotive market of India is in line with the Company’s strategic focus on future profitable growth with a particular emphasis on Asian growth markets. Series production of carpet systems, interior trim, wheelhouse outer liners, e-motor encapsulations and other noise protection components for local and international vehicle manufacturers has already begun.

The plant in Pune in the western Indian state of Maharashtra is wholly owned by Autoneum and complements the existing production facility in Behror near New Dehli in the north and the joint venture plant in Chennai in the south of India. During the inauguration ceremony in Pune, Autoneum CEO Eelco Spoelder said: “With the opening of our new plant, Autoneum gains access to the third of the four major automobile production centers in India. By expanding our presence in this strategically important region, we can further strengthen our position in Asia, the world’s largest automotive market.”

The building spans an area of 7 500 square meters and includes modern production equipment. The Pune plant will supply both local and international customers with noise-reducing lightweight components for the interior and exterior of vehicles of all drive types. Pune will be the first Autoneum plant in India with the capability to produce Hybrid-Acoustics PET felts for e-motor encapsulation. Components made of Hybrid-Acoustics PET are characterized by their lightweight construction and noise protection that are optimized for electric vehicles. They consist entirely of PET, which is largely obtained from recycled fibers, and thus meet customer demand for environmentally friendly mobility solutions.

As announced in March, Pune is one of two plants that Autoneum is opening this year in the important Asian growth markets of China and India. The new joint venture plant in Changchun in the northern Chinese province of Jilin will ramp up production of inner dashes, interior floor insulators and other NVH (noise, vibration, harshness) components for European, Japanese and Chinese car manufacturers from the end of 2024. Both new plants in Pune and Changchun are strategically located thanks to their proximity to important customers. In India, Autoneum supplies European, American, Indian, Japanese and Korean vehicle manufacturers.

As a traditional textile country, India has also established a strong position in the field of manmade fiber production in recent decades. The West Asian country has now become the second largest polyester yarn manufacturer in the world. The Indian textile industry covers the entire value chain from the melt to the finished textile end product.

The technical textiles sector in particular is regarded as a future market. With an average growth rate of 12% since 2013, this dynamic sector accounts for around 13% of the entire Indian textile and clothing market, according to the government organization Invest India. The market volume has almost doubled in the past ten years. In India, the production of industrial yarn has so far relied heavily on polyamide. Oerlikon Barmag has a strong market position here. "In recent years, we have commissioned plants for numerous customers," says Dr. Wolfgang Ernst, Head of Sales of the Oerlikon Business Unit Manmade Fibers Solutions.

Increasing demand for industrial polyester yarns
The construction boom and the increasing use of geotextiles and industrial textiles in various infrastructure projects as well as in agriculture and aquaculture show enormous growth potential. This is supported by the government's 2021 industrial development program, which includes technical textiles as one of ten priority sectors. The program is based on reducing dependence on imports. Until now, a large proportion of the technical textiles and yarns required in the country have been imported.

The trend towards high-quality technical textiles for the domestic market has also been noted by the Remscheid-based machine and plant manufacturer. "We are receiving more and more inquiries from Indian customers for spinning systems for industrial yarns," says Dr. Wolfgang Ernst. "What is new is the great interest shown by companies from downstream processes that are looking for backward integration. We attribute this to the stricter regulations of the Bureau of Indian Standards. Until now, industrial yarns were mainly imported from China. In order to guarantee the quality of the processed yarns, this has been strictly regulated by the government since last year. It therefore makes sense for Indian textile producers to enter the yarn manufacturing sector." This development was also noticeable at this year's Techtextil in Frankfurt, where the experts from Oerlikon Barmag were able to hold a disproportionately high number of technical discussions with Indian customers and interested parties.

The flexible spinning concepts of Oerlikon Barmag enable a variety of possible yarn products for numerous applications. The portfolio includes processes for the production of polyamide and polyester yarns with the required physical properties for a wide range of end applications, whether HMLS yarns for car tires, yarns for geotextiles, safety belts or even airbags.

CARBIOS and SASA, a manufacturer of polyester, fiber, filament yarn, polyester-based polymers, specialty polymers and intermediates, have signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) to cooperate through SASA’s potential acquisition of a license for CARBIOS’ unique PET biorecycling technology. This licensing agreement would allow SASA to construct and operate an enzymatic depolymerization plant in Adana, Turkey, with a capacity of 100,000 tons per year of prepared PET waste, and would give access to a circular recycling technology, enabling the production of polyester pellets, fibers and textiles from various waste sources, including polyester textile waste. With CARBIOS' biorecycling technology, SASA would diversify its offering to meet the growing global demand for sustainable materials in the textile industry, primarily catering to the European market.

Less than 1% of textile waste is currently recycled into new textile fibers^[1].  With European regulations moving towards the incorporation of more recycled content (at least 20% of recycled fibers by 2030), demand for recycled polyester in the EU is anticipated to increase, naturally positioning Turkey as a major producer alongside Asian countries.  In this context, SASA is striving to become the largest supplier of high value-added polyester in the region and beyond. To achieve this, SASA aims to introduce recycling as part of its activities, which already encompass the whole value chain from PET production to fiber and textile conversion. CARBIOS’ PET biorecycling technology plays an important part in SASA’s ongoing transformation strategy, which includes back integration, capacity expansion, even higher competitiveness, as well as circularity.

CARBIOS has developed a enzymatic depolymerization technology that enables efficient and solvent-free recycling of PET plastic and textile waste into virgin-like products. CARBIOS has ambitious plans to become a leading technology provider in the recycling of PET by 2035. After the recent announcement of a joint Letter of Intent with Zhink Group in China, this new Letter of Intent for a potential licensing agreement in Europe confirms global traction for CARBIOS biorecycling technology, and marks another significant step in the international roll-out of its licensing model. In addition to the world’s first industrial-scale enzymatic PET recycling plant which is currently under construction in Longlaville, France, this potential plant in Turkey would process PET waste that is currently not recyclable using conventional recycling technologies.

[1] System Circularity and Innovative Recycling of Textiles | Circular Cities and Regions Initiative (europa.eu)

CARBIOS and Zhink Group, specializing in two global industries, PET and textiles, announce the signing of a joint Letter of Intent to build a biorecycling plant in China using CARBIOS’ revolutionary enzymatic depolymerization technology to serve the global market. This agreement officializes collaboration towards a long-term partnership in view of a first licensing contract to build a plant with a minimum annual processing capacity of 50k tons of prepared PET waste and would contribute to accelerating a circular economy for plastic and textiles. China is a key market for CARBIOS, and this agreement would establish a presence in this dominant market.

With 67 million tons of PET produced annually, representing 61% of global production^[1], China is the world's largest PET producer. With regional and global demand for recycled PET growing, China also has the potential to take the lead in recycled PET (r-PET) production. In 2021, 58% of the world’s r-PET was consumed in Asia (with 38% in China^[2]) underscoring this region’s importance both as a major producer and consumer.

Furthermore, China is a key transformer of PET into resins and fibers used in numerous applications in the packaging and textile industries.  Most notably, China is the primary country for transforming PET into fiber, representing 78% of all PET fiber transformation in the world^[3].

For Zhink, the strategic focus is on the development of two global industries, PET and textiles, and to be a leader with sustainable competitiveness. Zhink is a major actor within the PET market with an annual production of 3 million tons of PET, serving domestic and global markets. CARBIOS has developed a enzymatic depolymerization technology that enables efficient and solvent-free recycling of PET plastic and textile waste into virgin-like products. The initial agreement between the two groups would allow Zhink to increase its recycled PET capacities and meet its sustainable competitiveness objectives by offering r-PET from enzymatic recycling: a circular recycling solution that can process all types of PET waste including hard-to-recycle waste (such as opaque and colored bottles, multilayer food trays and textile waste) while reducing CO2 emissions by 57%^[4] compared with virgin PET production. For CARBIOS, this agreement marks a significant step in the deployment of its technology worldwide and roll-out of its licensing model to achieve its ambition to become a leading technology provider in the recycling of PET by 2035. This Asia-based plant under license by Zhink would come in addition to the world’s first industrial-scale enzymatic PET recycling plant which is currently under construction in Longlaville, France.

^[1] HIS Markit 2021, Market Research Future 2021
^[2] HIS Markit 2021, Market Research Future 2021
^[3] HIS Markit 2021, Market Research Future 2021
^[4] Database ecoinvent 3.8; French scenario, taking into account the detour of 50% of PET waste from conventional end-of-life. Virgin PET: 2.53 kg CO2/kg (cradle to gate)