For DISSOLVA chemical pre-processing, refers to our treatments designed to remove everything, that should not end up in the final recycled fibre.

Textiles can contain thousands of chemicals, depending on their origin and use.

This may be several different types of dyes, elastane, finishing agents, PFAS, metal ions, prints, coatings, adhesives, heat-transfer materials and other organic and inorganic components.

These substances can interfere with subsequent recycling by affecting colour, purity, polymer stability, filtration, dissolution behaviour and downstream fibre production.

DISSOLVA has developed targeted chemical pre-processing modules designed to selectively remove or reduce these components while preserving the textile material intended for recovery.

Depending on the feedstock, treatment can address:

• dyes

• elastane

• polyurethane-based components

• PFAS-components

• functional finishing chemistries

• metals and inorganic residues

• prints, coatings, adhesives, heat-transfer and reflective components

The individual modules can be used independently to produce a cleaner textile feedstock for another recycling technology, or combined when more extensive purification and polymer separation are required.

Instead of breaking PET down, purifying its building blocks and rebuilding the polymer, DISSOLVA separates and recovers the polymer that is already there.

Where separation of cotton/polyester textiles is required, DISSOLVA uses selective dissolution to separate PET from the textile matrix while retaining the cellulose as a separate, solid fraction.

The fundamental difference from depolymerisation-based recycling is that DISSOLVA does not intentionally break PET down into monomers.

In monomer-based recycling, the polymer chain is chemically cleaved. The resulting monomers or intermediates must subsequently be separated, purified and polymerised again to rebuild the molecular weight required for fibre production.

DISSOLVA instead recovers PET at polymer level.

By preserving the polymer chain, the process avoids both intentional depolymerisation and the subsequent re-polymerisation step.

This can eliminate several energy- and process-intensive operations associated with breaking down, purifying and rebuilding the polymer.

There is another important process advantage: Because the recovered PET remains a polymer, it can be separated from the liquid process phase as a solid material.

The solvent remains in a separate liquid stream and can be conditioned and returned to the process for reuse.

This creates a fundamentally different separation challenge from recycling routes in which monomers, oligomers, catalysts and reaction by-products remain dissolved in the same process medium and must subsequently be separated and purified before polymerisation.

The objective is therefore to separate cotton from polyester and recover both polymers while retaining as much of their existing material value as possible — and to do so within a process architecture designed for solvent recovery and repeated reuse.

Separation only works industrially if the process streams are managed too

Removing contaminants from textiles does not eliminate them. It transfers them into another process stream.

DISSOLVA therefore treats polymer recovery, process-liquid recovery and contaminant management as parts of the same technology platform.

Liquid streams generated during pre-processing and polymer separation are captured and directed to dedicated recovery and treatment operations.

Process solvents are recovered, purified and returned for repeated use rather than being designed as once-through consumables.

Aqueous streams are similarly treated and recirculated where technically appropriate.

At the same time, substances removed from the textiles — including dyes, metals, finishing chemicals and other contaminants — are concentrated into controlled side streams for appropriate recovery, treatment or destruction.

The process architecture is therefore designed around several simultaneous mass balances:

• textile polymers

• process solvents

• water

• extracted chemicals and contaminants

This is fundamental to both process economics and environmental performance at industrial scale.

Circular textile recycling requires control of everything that leaves the textile — not only recovery of the fibre.

The process adapts to the feedstock

Industrial textile waste is variable by definition.

Its cellulose/polyester composition, colour, elastane content, finishing chemistry and applied components change across product categories, suppliers and collection systems.

DISSOLVA does not require every textile stream to be prepared to one fixed fibre composition before entering the technology platform.

Instead, feedstock is characterised and the relevant treatment modules are selected according to the material available and the output required.

This allows the platform to address material ranging from relatively simple cotton/polyester textiles to more complex streams such as workwear, sportswear, printed garments and textiles containing functional finishes or applied components.

A broader usable feedstock window reduces dependency on a limited pool of highly specified textile waste and provides greater flexibility in sourcing material for industrial-scale recycling.

For DISSOLVA, feedstock flexibility is therefore both a process capability and a scale-up strategy.