Collaboration between Resource Recovery and Textiles and Fashion

The fact that the two areas intersect is no coincidence. All textile materials consist of polymers, complex large molecular structures that have in common that they can be processed into different shapes through heat: elastic and soft or brittle and hard. 

"Whether it's yarn fibres or other textile structures, you need to have knowledge of polymeric materials. We can contribute to that. Polymer research has been at the university for over 20 years and we have good resources and modern and unique equipment," said Mikael Skrifvars. 

Lack of prestige is a prerequisite

The collaboration with Textiles and Fashion intensified a few years ago when Nawar Kadi started at the university. Today, he is the Research Area Representative for Textiles and Fashion and head of the textile labs, as well as Professor of Textile Technology. Mikael Skrifvars mentions a lack of prestige as a prerequisite for succeeding with interdisciplinary collaborations. 
"Not everyone can be good at everything; the most important thing is that everyone wants and can contribute with their expertise and that you work together," said Mikael Skrifvars. 

Strengthens the university's path to full university status

An example of the interdisciplinary collaborations is the doctoral network DyeAnotherWay, a four-year project that aims to develop environmentally friendly dyes for the textile and food industry. It is coordinated by the University of TU Vienna in Austria and funded by the EU's prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) programme. Two doctoral students are funded by the project: one in Polymer Technology and one in Textile Technology, In another research project, funded by the Swedish Energy Agency and together with the companies Renasens and Stadium, a scalable process is being developed to use supercritical CO₂ technology to purify textile waste from paint residues and elastane. The aim is to remove one of the major obstacles to recycling textile waste. 

Resource recovery’s polymer lab is also important for both teaching and research, and for textile students it provides an opportunity to see how fibres and filaments can be manufactured through melt spinning, and how the thermal properties can be characterized. The polymer lab is used in courses, thesis projects, and doctoral projects. 
"These are just a few examples of how the collaboration provides clear synergy effects and it strengthens the university's path towards becoming a university," said Mikael Skrifvars. 

How do you see the future of polymer technology and what are the big issues to solve?

"It is a very big challenge to replace all crude oil-based polymers and therefore the demand for sustainable polymers is huge. The goal is that it should be fossil-free and renewable. There is also the problem of microplastics and additives, which are a potential environmental hazard. Recycling is also a big issue, to make the most of end-of-life polymeric products and look at what the residual material can be used for.”

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Polymer Technology Research Group 
Read more about the research area Textiles and Fashion
Read more about the research area Resource Recovery