Turning textile waste into new chemical building blocks

A Friday afternoon experiment with textile waste

It is a Friday afternoon in October. In the TNO laboratory, Surika van Wyk and Carlos Mourao Vilela, both scientist innovators at TNO, start an experiment they have been thinking about for a while: what can we get out of a pile of textile waste that normally gets incinerated?

The testing material was not a clean laboratory sample, but a bag of real textile waste from a waste sorter. T-shirts, workwear, an old pair of jeans. Material that others consider worthless, but exactly what the team was looking for.

'We had an idea of what we would get based on the general composition', Surika explains. 'But you are always surprised by the interactions between different fibres and chemicals.' What followed confirmed their hypothesis and worked better than expected: a versatile product slate emerged, from synthesis gas for methanol production to benzene that can be used to make new polyester. Technology with the potential for significant industrial impact.

Why most textiles still get burned

The textile industry is limited in its recycling possibilities. Current methods require clean, single-material streams. But real post-consumer textile waste contains 15 or more fibre types, plus dyes, flame retardants, buttons and zips. In the Netherlands, 215,000 tonnes of textiles are thrown away annually, equating to ~ 12 kg per person. More than 50% of that textile waste ends up in household waste bins and is then incinerated.

Meanwhile, regulations are tightening. The revised EU Waste Framework Directive requires Extended Producer Responsibility schemes for textiles by 2028. So the pressure to find solutions is mounting.

The shortcut to valuable chemicals

Traditional gasification converts everything into synthesis gas, carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which then requires extensive processing to rebuild into useful molecules. TNO's thermochemical recycling process takes a different route. By operating at intermediate temperatures (700-850°C), the technology captures valuable chemicals before they break down completely.

The result is a versatile mix of chemical building blocks: synthesis gas for methanol and fuels, aromatics like benzene for new polyester, and olefins that form the basis of most common plastics. The process does produce some CO2, mainly from the polyester fraction, but far less than full incineration. And crucially: the valuable carbon is captured rather than lost.

A key milestone came when the team successfully recovered half a litre of general aromatics of which 70% benzene from a multi-hour run processing real textile waste. Besides the science, this also took some practical effort. 'We are used to making small, beautiful pellets that feed easily into our reactor', Carlos recalls. 'Textile waste is fluffy, it blocks the screw feeder. We had to solve practical challenges first. But once we did, we proved the principle works.'

Instead of paying for waste, selling it

The technology opens possibilities across the textile ecosystem. For sorters, what they pay to incinerate could become revenue. Currently, sorters pay around 0.28 €/kg for incineration and additionally separating the different fractions is labour intensive.

For brand owners facing EPR obligations, it offers a credible circularity solution. For chemical producers, textile waste becomes an alternative carbon source as fossil regulations tighten.

Medical textiles and military uniforms

There are also specialised applications where incineration is currently the only option. Medical textiles must be destroyed for biosafety reasons. Military uniforms are shredded for security. Workwear contains PFAS that poses risks when incinerated.

For these sectors, TNO offers an alternative that is also more environmentally friendly. 'The contaminants go into the gas phase, where we can filter and capture them', Surika explains. 'Rather than releasing them into the atmosphere.'

From waste sorter to feedstock provider

Carlos sees parallels with plastic waste discussions from 2018. Brand owners will need to consider circularity. But there will always be waste fractions that cannot be processed otherwise. 'That is where we add value', he says. 'For material with no further use, we can still valorise it.'

TNO has proven the principle at lab scale. The next step requires commercial partners to scale to demonstration level. The ideal outcome? Surika puts it simply: 'Sorters become feedstock providers. No more need for incineration.'

From biomass to plastics to textiles

TNO's approach builds on years of experience. The team developed thermochemical technology first for biomass, then adapted it for plastic waste from 2018. By 2023, they saw the next opportunity: textiles.

'Textile sits somewhere between biomass and plastics in composition', says Carlos. 'We already knew how to handle heterogeneous feedstocks. The question was: can we apply that to textile waste?'

The answer required working with real waste, not idealised laboratory mixtures. TNO obtained 400 kilograms of actual post-consumer textile waste from Dutch sorters. The exact material that would otherwise be incinerated.