From the Sector

B.I.G. Yarns unveils its new “SustainableYarns” platform, with Clerkenwell Design Week visitors the first to be invited to get on board and focus on what matters most for the design and manufacture of sustainable soft floorings.

The expert in polyamide (PA) 1 step 3 ply yarns offers a range of options for manufacturers to introduce sustainable yarns into carpet solutions and reach sustainability targets faster and more efficiently.

The Sustainable Yarns range creates opportunities to design with recycled content yarn (EqoCycle), to work with renewable resources (EqoBalance), and, following the launch of new polyamide 6 (PA6) EqoYarn at Clerkenwell Design Week, to also leverage the low-impact value chain.

New addition EqoYarn is a new low-impact PA6 carpet yarn based on the most recent innovations in polymer production, which enable yarn manufacturers to lower their carbon footprint by nearly 50% and give carpet manufacturers more options to reduce their impact.

For its EqoYarn Bulk Continuous Filament (BCF) production process, B.I.G. Yarns has selected the few best-in-class partners that have made major steps forward in terms of sustainability, and reduced their greenhouse gas emissions thanks to continuous investments in process efficiency, green energy, heat optimization and waste reduction. The result is EqoYarn with a carbon footprint of 4 kg CO2 eq/kg yarns, which is a CO2 reduction of up to 50% compared to conventional PA yarns.

EqoBalance PA6 yarns enable customers to reach an even higher CO2 reduction of up to 75%. Manufactured with polymers made from renewable resources such as organic waste from cooking oil instead of virgin or fossil feedstock, these yarns have a carbon footprint of 1.98 kg CO2 eq./ kg yarns. They help carpet manufacturers to create products with an extremely low carbon footprint.

EqoCycle PA6 yarns are fully recyclable and incorporate 75% recycled content originating from recycled and regenerated PA6 granules. With a carbon footprint of 4.64 kg CO2 eq./ kg yarns, they deliver the same high-quality performance of virgin PA6 yarn with the benefit of 37% CO2 reduction. EqoCycle yarns offer carpet manufacturers a sustainable alternative to help reduce the ecological footprint of their products and move towards a circular economy without jeopardizing the end-product quality.

In addition to the different CO2-reducing options, B.I.G. Yarns’ customers can access an unlimited colour range to elevate their designs. Its BCF technology for polyamide yarns, twisted and heat-set yarns, one-colour to multi-colour, between 650 and 15000 dTex, along with its colour studio, are available to support their creation of customised collections.

• TreeToTextile sustainable textile fibre demo plant in Sweden

TreeToTextile, owned by H&M Group, Inter IKEA Group, Stora Enso, and LSCS Invest, invested €35 million in constructing a textile fiber process technology demonstration plant in Sweden. AFRY supported TreeToTextile throughout the project in the development and implementation phases from 2016-2022. The demonstration plant is now in the start-up phase.

TreeToTextile is offering a new technology to produce bio-based textile fibers with a low environmental footprint and aims to make sustainable textile fibers available to all. The new fiber is a regenerated cellulosic fiber, produced from renewable and sustainably sourced raw materials from forests. TreeToTextile has invested €35 million in developing and constructing a new demonstration plant in Nymölla, Sweden. This investment is a crucial step prior to the scale-up and commercialization of this technology.

AFRY has been the leading consultant and engineering partner of TreeToTextile from its early stages of project development in 2016, continuing onto demo plant implementation engineering from 2020-2022 In the project development phase, AFRY’s assignment included several pre-feasibility and feasibility studies, process design, up-scaling evaluations, and supplier pilot runs planning. In the demo plant implementation phase, AFRY was responsible for the engineering, project management and site services, also providing many additional services like permit and procurement support as well as machine and IT solutions.

“AFRY and TreeToTextile have a long-lasting, mutually developing relationship that we hope to continue. Together with AFRY, we have overcome the challenges through close collaboration, flexibility, broad competence and most important of all, mutual commitment”, says Olli Ylä-Jarkko, CTO at TreeToTextile.

The commissioning of the demonstration plant started in the summer of 2022, and the project was handed over to TreeToTextile for start-up and further optimization of the process.

“I’m proud of the deep and long-lasting cooperation with TreeToTextile. This project shows AFRY’s ability and wide competence to meet various demands of customer investment projects – from early phase development to implementation. AFRY’s long experience with bio-based materials, combined with our extensive process industry and project execution experience, makes us a unique partner for industrial clients in accelerating their bio-based fibers to scalable commercial production”, says Lisa Vedin, Head of Process Industries Sweden at AFRY.

• Lenzing again recognized for sustainable sourcing, innovation and transparency
• Lenzing achieves the highest category for the third time already

The Lenzing Group achieved first place in the “Hot Button Ranking” of the Canadian non-profit organization Canopy, thus confirming its leading role in the areas of sustainability and responsible wood and pulp sourcing. Lenzing can also once again celebrate a dark green shirt, synonymous with the highest category.

In this ranking, which receives a lot of attention in the textile and apparel industry, Canopy evaluates the world’s 34 largest producers of cellulosic fibers in terms of their sustainable wood and pulp sourcing, their efforts with regard to the use of alternative raw materials and their achievements in the protection of ancient and endangered forests. Resource preservation is a key element of Lenzing’s corporate strategy and at the core of its innovation agenda. The sustainable production of TENCEL™, VEOCEL™ and LENZING™ ECOVERO™branded specialty fibers is based on these principles.

Promoting the circular economy
With its REFIBRA™ and Eco Cycle technologies, Lenzing offers solutions for transforming the textile and nonwovens industries towards a circular economy. In line with its vision for the circular economy, “We give waste a new life. Every day.” Lenzing is driving the industry toward a full circular economy by striving to give waste a new life in all aspects of its core business and developing circular solutions together with potential partners inside and outside the current value chain. A milestone on this path is the cooperation with the Swedish pulp producer Södra. The two global market leaders, who have been proactively promoting the circular economy in the fashion industry for many years, are joining forces to give the topic a further boost and make a decisive contribution to solving the global textile waste problem by making fibers from post-consumer textiles.

Today, Lenzing offers lyocell fibers made from 30 percent recycled cotton waste. The company aims to launch lyocell, modal and viscose staple fibers with up to 50 percent recycled post-consumer content on a commercial scale by 2025 and to develop a new circular business model by closing the loops for post-consumer waste. By 2025, the company plans to enter into further partnerships with 25 key supply chain companies.

The Enforcement Forum of ECHA agreed that the next REACH enforcement project will investigate how companies fulfil the registration, authorisation and restriction obligations for products and chemicals they import from outside the EU. The project will be done in 2023-2025 and will require close cooperation between REACH enforcement and national customs authorities in the Member States.
In its November meeting, the Enforcement Forum, responsible for harmonising the enforcement of EU chemicals legislation, agreed to focus its next project on the control of imports of substances, mixtures and articles.

This subject was triggered by high levels of non-compliance in imported goods detected in previous Forum projects, including a recent pilot project. The pilot found that 23 % of inspected products were non-compliant with requirements set by EU law and further controls are necessary.

Control of imports at the point of entry is the most effective means of checking that non-compliant substances, mixtures and articles do not enter the European market. The project will also work on further developing and strengthening existing cooperation between REACH inspectors and customs. By strengthening the control of imports, the project will also contribute to the goals of the EU’s Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability.

The Forum also agreed to publish its future advice on enforceability of new restriction proposals under REACH.

Opportunities for expanding the future role of the Forum, strengthening the control of imports and other areas were on the agenda in an open session where 41 representatives from stakeholder organisations and four candidate countries joined. Among other topics, the open session also addressed the enforceability of REACH restrictions, for example, in textiles or on the use of lead gunshot in wetlands as well as analytical methods relevant for the control of REACH duties.

The Forum’s Biocidal Products Regulation Subgroup (BPRS) re-elected Helmut de Vos (BE) for a second term as a Vice-Chair.

After two years of joint collaboration and research the Swiss Textile Recycling Project “Texcircle” comes to an end. Partners and stakeholders have worked on the vision of a textile cluster where materials flow in circular loops. The goal of the project was to develop high-quality yarns and products incorporating such a large amount of recycled textiles as possible. In the end, several product prototypes from carpets, socks, and curtains to pullovers, padding and accessories have been developed with at least 50 % recycled fiber up to 80 % recycled fibers and yarns.

Europe has a waste problem of 7.5 million waste of which only 30-35 % is collected and less than 1 % of the textile and clothing worldwide is recycled into textiles and clothing again. It is as well found that around 80 % of the impact of a textile product lies in the design.

Together with the design research expertise of the Lucerne University of Applied sciences and arts, the spinning expertise of Rieter and the sorting and collection expertise of Texaid, systems should be created where products of high quality can be produced of recycled fiber. On board were the expertise of further Cluster partners of Brands, Retailers, and the public sector to see how a joint Cluster and system coukld be established.

The Project Texcircle and cluster is led by the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts – Art  & Design, and in collaboration with Coop, Rieter, Jacob Rohner AG, Ruckstuhl AG, TEXAID as well as workfashion.com ag. Furthermore, Bundesamt für Zivildienst ZIVI, NIKIN AG, and Tiger Liz Textiles are supporting the project. The project is funded by Innosuisse.

Furthermore, collaboration partners from all over Europe contributed to the project to enable these prototypes and systems.

Through joint developments from the design, the collecting, sorting trials, tearing, and spinning trials until the actual production trials and product testing. The partners were able to recycle 2.5 Tons of pre-and post-consumer textile waste into product prototypes with a promising commercial interest. From socks, west, and pullovers to non-woven felts and accessories to carpets and curtains. Through our 2 years of collaboration, the teamcame across several hurdles in the textile recycling value chain which could be tackled. This was a proof of concept that a circular system is possible and the industry now has to enable this at full scale.

Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited (IVL) completed the acquisition of the wool spinning businesses in Italy and Poland of Tollegno 1900 S.p.A. (Tollegno 1900), a leading Italian manufacturer of fabrics and yarns.

Tollegno 1900 has a family-based heritage with more than 120 years of experience and is one of the leading European textile groups with a total spinning capacity of around 3,500 tons of yarn per year with a specific focus on flat knitting and hand knitting yarns. With this acquisition, IVL secured two assets, including a spinning and top-dyeing operation in Poland and a yarn dyeing operation in Italy.

The acquisition is a strategic fit for IVL’s integrated business platform and will make a significant contribution to the sustainable growth of its Wool business, which is part of the company’s Fibers segment. It will also strengthen IVL’s footprint for worsted yarns in Europe and help extend IVL’s wool products globally with trading subsidiaries in America and Asia.

The operations, which will be renamed Filatura Tollegno 1900, will add more sustainable products to IVL’s portfolio, including a full traceability project of the fibers used for yarns and fabrics, as well as provide synergies with existing assets.

Giovanni Germanetti, the CEO of Tollegno, will continue in the same role with Filatura Tollegno 1900, facilitating continuity and exploring new growth as part of IVL. Lincoln Germanetti, the President and co-CEO of Tollegno, will remain with Filatura Tollegno 1900 as COO.

• Target markets: automotive, furnishings, sports and technical apparel
• New product entry: radipeople® line of personal protective equipment

RadiciGroup is at Techtextil 2022, the leading European trade fair for technical textiles, taking place in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, from 21 to 24 June. On display in the RadiciGroup exhibition area are the Group’s latest products for the automotive, furnishings and apparel markets: from nylon and polyester yarn, including biosource and recycled lines, to nonwovens and the new radipeople® line of personal protective equipment (PPE).

Indeed, at Techtextil, RadiciGroup is showcasing RENYCLE®, a yarn obtained from recycled nylon; REPETABLE®, a polyester yarn from post-consumer recycled plastic bottles; RESPUNSIBLE®, a nonwoven fabric from recycled polypropylene; and BIOFEEL®, a brand identifying a yarn line obtained from renewable sources of both nylon and polyester.

Moreover, RadiciGroup is participating in a forum organized by the Technical Textiles Section of Sistema Moda Italia in collaboration with the Italian Space Agency (ICE) (Hall 12.1 – Stand C58), with the goal of introducing product innovations not only coming from a single manufacturer, but also from an innovative synergistic approach all along the supply chain, from raw materials to finished products. An example of this synergistic collaboration is the “Mars Spacesuit”, recently tested in the USA by analogue astronauts as part of a space medicine project designed to measure the vital signs of future astronauts and develop technologies to support the simulation of life in space and planetary environments. RadiciGroup teamed up with major Italian textile companies and supplied the materials to make the suits for the six analogue astronauts participating in the mission and coordinated the development of the technologies needed to create the technicalwear for use in extreme environmental conditions.

With its current position paper, the Industrievereinigung Chemiefaser e.V. takes a stand on the intense discussions about an embargo against Russian natural gas supplies. The association believes that Germany's economic and global political future can only be secured with a strong industrial base and therefore, weighing up all positions and influencing factors and assessing the consequences for labour and the market economy, cannot support a short-term natural gas embargo on Russia.

An interruption of the continuous supply of natural gas would result in immense losses for the chemical fibre companies, which could even lead to the destruction of the industry in Germany. The losses are made up of technical damage caused by an uncoordinated shutdown of plants on the one hand and market-related consequential damage caused by lost production and a lack of product sales on the other.

Depending on the location and size of the plants, a short-term outage due to a lack of natural gas would result in average losses of EUR 5 million/plant. In addition, an ongoing daily loss would have to be expected which could be in the order of e.g. 250 000 EUR/day/plant, depending on the location. Furthermore, restarting the plants is questionable if supply chains could no longer be serviced and customers globally look for other suppliers in the meantime. Thus, entire sites would be at risk. With China's global market share in man-made fiber production already exceeding 70 %, a scenario is more than realistic that China will also take over these supply chains, thus leading to an even greater dependence on China.

The vast majority of power plants used for the production of man-made fibers, especially the highly efficient combined gas-and-steam power plants based on the principle of cogeneration with efficiencies of 90 %, are designed exclusively for the use of natural gas. Quite often, there are no technical facilities for operating gas turbines or steam boilers with fuels other than natural gas. Only in exceptional cases could a switch be made to mineral oil. However, even in these cases, the necessary stockpiling of mineral oil is designed only for a short-term failure of the gas burners. A change to base-load supply with mineral oil could take a time window of between 3 and 56 months, depending on the type of plant and taking into account licensing requirements. The use of hydrogen as an energy source is only possible in the very long term. In the few cases where natural gas can be substituted, investment costs of EUR 250 million/plant can be incurred, depending on the emission level of the converted plant.

A natural gas embargo imposed by the European Union on the Russian Federation would not only mean the cessation of production and the end for man-made fiber producers, but also for other industries such as basic chemicals, paper, metal production and glass and ceramics manufacturing, as well as their related sectors. As the German economic institute Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft Köln e. V. (IW Köln) concluded in its summary report 40/2022 of April 2022: "No one can accurately predict what future these businesses would then still have in Germany. That would be an unprecedented development."

• Stephan Sielaff replaces interim CEO Cord Prinzhorn

• CFO Thomas Obendrauf will not extend his contract

• Chairman of the Supervisory Board Peter Edelmann will no longer be available as Chairman at the end of the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting

• Cord Prinzhorn returns to Supervisory Board and will take over as Chairman

The Supervisory Board of Lenzing AG has appointed Stephan Sielaff, the former CTO/COO of Lenzing AG, as the new CEO effective April 01, 2022. He succeeds Cord Prinzhorn, who took over as interim CEO in the fourth quarter of 2021. Cord Prinzhorn will return to the Supervisory Board of Lenzing AG. The Managing Board will thus be reduced again from five to four members.

Stephan Sielaff holds a degree in chemical engineering and held various management positions at Unilever and Symrise from 1993 to 2014. Between 2014 and 2020, he was responsible for the strategic development of the company as a Member of the Board of Directors (COO) at the Swiss specialty chemicals company Archroma – an important supplier of the textile and paper industry. He was appointed Chief Technology Officer and COO of Lenzing AG as of March 01, 2020.

CFO Thomas Obendrauf has informed the Supervisory Board that he will not be available for a further extension of his contract, which expires in June 2022. The Supervisory Board of Lenzing AG is already working on a timely replacement. Mr. Obendrauf will be available to the company in an advisory capacity until a successor is appointed.

Peter Edelmann will leave the Supervisory Board upon his own request, effective April 26, 2022. Cord Prinzhorn will return to the Supervisory Board and will take over as Chairman.

• The 16th World Pultrusion Conference will be postponed to 5-6 May 2022

The EPTA – European Pultrusion Technology Association in cooperation with the American Composites Manufacturers Association (ACMA) will postpone the 16th World Pultrusion Conference to 5-6 May 2022 due to the corona situation and the postponement of the JEC World, with which there is a close partnership.

This conference takes place every two years and is the meeting point of the European and worldwide Pultrusion Industry. More than 25 international speakers from Belgium, Germany, France, Spain, The Netherlands, Turkey, UK and the USA will present practical presentations about innovative applications, technologies and processes. Equally current market trends and developments are on the agenda.
This World Pultrusion Conference takes now place on 5-6 May 2022 in Paris, France. The presentation language will be English. The program, further details and registration information is available at www.pultruders.com.