Recycling: Indorama part of textile recycling project; Aduro to collaborate with TotalEnergies on hard-to-recycle feedstock

Thailand-based Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited is partaking in the T-Rex (Textile Recycling Excellence) project. This initiative aims to establish a harmonised EU blueprint for the closed-loop sorting and recycling of household textile waste to help the fashion industry transition towards a more circular and sustainable future. By bringing together key stakeholders across the entire value chain, the project positions itself at the forefront of sustainable innovation.

The designated spinning partner, Indorama Ventures, will process the chemical recycled feedstock into polyester yarns and fibres through the extrusion process, ensuring the elimination of impurities.

The company’s participation in the project also aligns with its goals of driving the circular economy and circular fashion industry through PET recycling and supply of recycled materials, underscoring its commitment to sustainability.

Diego Boeri, Executive President of Indorama Ventures’ Fibers business, stated, "Indorama Ventures has decades-long experience in manmade-fibres processes, especially in polyester, and we are committed to driving sustainable solutions and the use of circular feedstock across the value chain to help our partners achieve their sustainability goals. We look forward to leveraging our technical expertise to contribute towards the success of the textile-to-textile recycling within the T-Rex Project.”

The T-Rex project launched with the aim of creating a harmonised blueprint which will support the creation of a circular system for post-consumer textile waste within Europe.

The EU funded project brings together a consortium of 13 major players from across the entire value chain along with research institutes to transform end-of-use textiles from waste into valuable feedstock and a commodity for new business models that can be adopted at scale.

In other news, Aduro Clean Technologies Inc, a Canadian technology company, is in a new collaboration with  TotalEnergies. This collaboration follows previously announced technical evaluations and underscores the growing interest in Hydrochemolytic technology being developed by Aduro, it says.

After positive preliminary technical evaluations by TotalEnergies, it is now entering a R&D collaboration phase. This phase will focus on a more diverse range of waste plastic materials, particularly those with higher concentrations of polyolefins, polyurethane, metals, and other challenging contaminants. The project aims to establish process parameters to manage these variable and hard-to-recycle feedstocks, optimise the process design and operating conditions, and lay the groundwork for a commercial process.

TotalEnergies will provide both financial and in-kind support, including access to technical resources. This collaboration aims to generate valuable data that will accelerate Aduro’s technology development and scale-up and facilitate the potential integration of Hydrochemolytic technology into refining and petrochemical platforms.

This collaboration aligns with Aduro’s Customer Engagement Program. Starting with a technology evaluation phase, the program progresses to a collaborative engagement aimed at gaining a more in-depth understanding of the technology, with potential customisation for the organisations’ specific needs.

The goal is to move into the final commercialisation stage, where the customer commits to a commercial project. This method ensures a thorough assessment of Hydrochemolytic technology, it adds.

Ofer Vicus, CEO at Aduro, says, "TotalEnergies is dedicated to advancing plastic recycling technologies to meet their goal of producing 30% circular polymers by 2030. Our collaboration with TotalEnergies represents a significant milestone in developing a practical and scalable commercial process for converting plastic waste into valuable feedstocks. This aligns perfectly with our strategic goal to work with global industry leaders towards a commercial process. We are excited to continue our work with them and are grateful for their increasing support and confidence in the potential of our Hydrochemolytic technology."