From the Sector

For the third time, nova-Institute awards the “Cellulose Fibre Innovation of the Year” award in the frame of the “Cellulose Fibres Conference 2023” (8-9 March 2023). The conference advisory board nominated six remarkable products, including cellulose fibres from textile waste, banana production waste and bacterial pulp, a novel technology for producing lyocell yarns and a hygiene product. The innovations will be put to the vote of the conference audience on the first day of the event, with the awards ceremony taking place in the evening. The innovation award “Cellulose Fibre Innovation of the Year 2023” is sponsored by GIG Karasek (AT).

Here are the six nominees
Vybrana – The new generation banana fibre – GenCrest Bioproducts (India)
Vybrana is a Gencrest’s Sustainable Cellulosic Fibre upcycled from agrowaste. Raw fibres are extracted from the Banana Pseudo stem at the end of the plant lifecycle. The biomass waste is then treated by the Gencrest patented Fiberzyme technology. Here, cocktail enzyme formulations remove the high lignin content and other impurities and help fibre fibrillation. The company's proprietary cottonisation process provides fine, spinnable cellulose staple fibres suitable for blending with other staple fibres and can be spun on any conventional spinning systems giving yarns sustainable apparel. Vybrana is produced without the use of heavy chemicals and minimized water consumption and in a waste-free process where balance biomass is converted to bio stimulants Agrosatva and Bio Fertilizers & organic manure.

HeiQ AeoniQ™ – technology for more sustainability of textiles – HeiQ (Austria)
HeiQ AeoniQ™ is the disruptive technology and key initiative from HeiQ with the potential to change the sustainability of textiles. It is the first climate-positive continuous cellulose filament yarn, made in a proprietary manufacturing process and the first to reproduce the properties of polyester and nylon yarns in a cellulosic, biodegradable, and endlessly recyclable fibre.
HeiQ AeoniQ™ can be manufactured from different cellulosic raw materials such as pre- and post-consumer textile waste, biotech cellulose, and non-valorized agricultural waste, such as ground coffee waste or banana peels. It naturally degrades after only 12 weeks in the soil. Each ton of HeiQ AeoniQ™ saves 5 tons of CO2 emissions. The first garments made with this innovative cellulosic filament fiber were commercially launched in January 2023.

TENCEL™ LUXE – lyocell filament yarn – Lenzing (Austria)
TENCEL™ LUXE is LENZING’s new versatile lyocell yarn that offers an urgently needed sustainable filament solution for the textile and fashion industry. A possible botanical alternative for silk, long-staple cotton, and petrol-based synthetic filaments, is derived from wood grown in renewable, sustainably managed forests, and produced in an environmentally sound, closed-loop process that recycles water and reuses more than 99 % of organic solvent. Certified by The Vegan Society, it is suitable for a wide range of applications and fabric developments, from finer high fashion propositions to denim constructions, seamless and activewear innovations, and even agricultural and technical solutions.

Nullarbor™ – Nanollose & Birla Cellulose (Australia/India)
In 2020, Nanollose & Birla Cellulose started a journey to develop and commercialize tree-free lyocell from bacterial cellulose, called Nullarbor™. The name derives from the Latin “nulla arbor” which means “no trees”. Initial lab research at both ends led to a joint patent application with the patent “production of high-tenacity lyocell fibres made from bacterial cellulose”.
Nullarbor is significantly stronger than lyocell made from wood-based pulp; even adding small amounts of bacterial cellulose to wood pulp increases the fibre toughness. In 2022, the first pilot batch of 260kg was produced with 20 % bacterial pulp share. Several high-quality fabrics and garments were produced with this fibre. The collaboration between Nanollose & Birla Cellulose now focuses on increasing the production scale and amount of bacterial pulp in the fibre.

Circulose® – makes fashion circular – Renewcell (Sweden)
Circulose® made by Renewcell is a branded dissolving pulp made from 100 % textile waste, like worn-out clothes and production scraps. It provides a unique material for fashion that is 100 % recycled, recyclable, biodegradable, and of virgin-equivalent quality. It is used by fibre producers to make staple fibre or filaments like viscose, lyocell, modal, acetate or other types of man-made cellulosic fibres. In 2022, Renewcell, opened the world’s first textile-to-textile chemical recycling plant in Sundsvall, Sweden – Renewcell 1. The plant will eventually reach 120,000 tons of annual capacity.

Sparkle sustainable sanitary pads – Sparkle Innovations (United States)
Globally, around 300 billion period products are discarded every year, resulting in millions of tons of non-biodegradable waste. Since most conventional sanitary pads contain up to 90 % plastics, they do not biodegrade for around 600 years. Sparkle has designed sustainable, plastic-free, biodegradable and compostable Sparkle sanitary pads. From product to packaging, they are made up of around 90 % cellulose-based materials with top sheet, absorbent core, release paper, wrapping paper and packaging made of cellulose-based fibres. Whether Sparkle pads end up in a compost pit, are incinerated or end up in a landfill, they are a more sustainable alternative compared to conventional pads that contain large amounts of plastics, complex petro-chemical based ingredients and artificial fragrances. When tested according to ISO 14855-1 by a leading independent lab in Europe, Sparkle pads reached over 90 % absolute biodegradation within 90 days in commercial composting conditions.

For the second time in a row, the speciality viscose fibre manufacturer Kelheim Fibres was awarded a place on the podium at the Cellulose Fibre of the Year Awards. The concept for sustainable menstrual underwear made from Kelheim’s functionalised speciality fibres achieved third place. Kelheim Fibres thus emerges from the competition as the most innovative fibre manufacturer.

Project manager New Business Development Natalie Wunder presented the promising concept from Kelheim at the International Conference on Cellulose Fibres: "We have been able to use our experience as a long-established supplier for the tampon industry to develop further sustainable solutions in the feminine hygiene sector, in this case reusable menstrual underwear. As an innovation pioneer, we are thus helping to break the taboos that surround the topic of menstruation. We offer women the choice between different environmentally friendly products which also offer high levels of performance - depending on what fits their lifestyle."

For the next step, the commercialisation of the concept, Dr Marina Crnoja-Cosic, Director New Business Development at Kelheim Fibres, puts her trust in the proven open innovation approach: "We want to bring partners from the entire value chain together. By bringing in our joint expertise, we can significantly accelerate the path from idea to finished product in the market. At the same time, through open dialogue, we ensure that the concept works seamlessly from fibre through processing to the final product.

Strict protective measures will make the industry meeting possible at the International Conference on Cellulose Fibres in Cologne on February 2 and 3, 2022. The latest innovations will be shocased: from hygiene and textiles to non-wovens and carbon fibre alternatives to lightweight construction applications. Online participation is also possible.

Cellulose fibres show an increasingly expanding wide range of applications, while at the same time markets are driven by technological developments and political framework conditions, especially bans and restrictions on plastics and increasing sustainability requirements. The conference provides rich information on opportunities for cellulose fibres through policy assessment, a session on sustainability, recycling and alternative feedstocks as well as latest development in pulp, cellulose fibres and yarns. This includes application such as non-wovens, packaging and composites.

Live at the conference, host nova-Institute and sponsor GIG Karasek GmbH will grand the “Cellulose Fibre Innovation of the Year” award to one of six highly interesting products, ranging from cellulose made of orange and wood pulp to a novel technology for cellulose fibre production. The presentations, election of the winner by the conference audience and the award ceremony will take place on the first day of the conference.

The conference sessions reflect the current topics of industry and research. “Strategies and Market Trends” provides an overview of the rapid development of cellulose fibres and their technological progress across the fibre market. An analysis of the key cost components of these fibres to benchmark against current cost levels will highlight future opportunities and challenges for novel textile fibres. The session will conclude with an overview of the industry's recent strategies to defossilize the fibre market.

The session “New Opportunities for Cellulose Fibres in Replacing Plastics”, focusses on questions such as: “What impact does the ban on plastics in single-use products have on the industry?” and “What are the latest regulatory issues and policy opportunities for cellulose fibres?”. This part of the conference presents new opportunities for the replacement of fossil-based insulating materials with cellulose-based technologies suitable for use in a variety of applications, from aerospace to mobility and construction.
Institutefor Ecology and Innovation

“Sustainability and Circular Economy” highlights crucial issues with regard to the overall goal of keeping the environmental impact of cellulose fibres low. A core theme of the session is the responsible use of wood and forests. With this objective, the five speakers discuss the importance of circular concepts for cellulose feedstocks. Exciting insights into the important “Hot Button Report” are offered by Canopy. The “Hot Button” report enables the producers of cellulose fibres to better understand the impact their raw materials have on forests and the climate development worldwide.

The full conference programme is available at www.cellulose-fibres.eu/program.

Kelheim Fibres has been named as one of the finalists for the “Cellulose Fibre Innovation of the Year 2021” innovation award to be presented at the 2nd International Conference on Cellulose Fibres. With their plant-based and biodegradable fibres, the Bavarian viscose speciality fibres manufacturer presents a significant contribution to a plastic-free future for AHP (absorbent hygiene products). In contrast to other natural fibres, which are already available in fibre form and can only be treated on the surface, Kelheim’s technological flexibility offers the possibility to modify cross-sections and to introduce additives into the fibre matrix for intrinsic functionalisation. Through these modifications, Kelheim tailors its fibres specifically to the requirements of the individual nonwoven layers of the AHP and is able to achieve comparable performance values to synthetic fibres. 

In addition to this, the speciality fibres from Kelheim offer a very attractive ratio of cost to performance in comparison with other fibres of natural origin such as organic cotton. They are therefore not only able to enhance the performance of the final products more effectively than other bio-based alternatives, but are, at the same time, financially attractive. "Consumers of absorbent hygiene products are often faced with a choice between sustainable solutions made from fibres of natural origin and products with better performance and good fluid management properties produced using synthetic fibres,“ says Dominik Mayer, from Kelheim’s R&D team. „Our goal is to offer products to the consumer which combine both sustainability and performance. Our sustainable and functional fibre technologies now make this possible.“

The project is a good illustration of the central element of Kelheim Fibres‘ innovation philosophy: the identification of unsolved problems in the market and the development of solutions in close cooperation with experts along the value chain using open innovation techniques. Fibres from Kelheim also offer a significant contribution to overcoming one of the biggest global challenges of our time, by reducing the amount of plastic waste in the environment. Step by step, or in this case layer by layer – Kelheim Fibres is moving towards a vision of a plastic-free future.

Kelheim’s developments include the hydrophobized Olea fibre (for fast acquisition and efficient transfer of liquid and for better rewet values in the topsheet) as well as the Galaxy® fibre (for an efficient and optimised distribution of liquids in the Acquisition Distribution Layer (ADL) via capillary channels) and the Bramante fibre (which can store up to 260% of its own weight of liquids in chambers inside the fibre). Kelheim’s fibres can also be processed in the textile sector, to enable solutions in the field of reusable hygiene products such as menstrual underwear. All these fibres are already commercially available. Kelheim Fibres is cooperating with an innovative AHP manufacturer and an innovative nonwoven supplier to incorporate the fibres into new end products.