Deakin University, Samsara Eco to advance textile recycling

Australia’s Deakin University’s Recycling and Clean Energy Commercialization Hub (REACH) is teaming up with Samsara Eco. The partnership aims to accelerate the development of a groundbreaking recycling technology capable of processing plastics and textiles once thought to be impossible to recycle.

Samsara Eco has developed AI-designed enzymes that can break down fossil fuel-based materials like nylon 6,6 and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) into their basic chemical building blocks, or monomers. These monomers can then be rebuilt into new products with the same quality as virgin materials.

Through this collaboration, Samsara Eco will tap into Deakin’s advanced chemical analysis and polymer processing expertise to address a key challenge, identifying and recycling specific additives in textile waste, such as dyes, finishes, and coatings.

Paul Riley, Founder and CEO of Samsara Eco, emphasised their mission to achieve true circularity for all plastics. He noted that their enzymatic recycling technology can infinitely recycle PET and nylon 6,6 from textiles, including mixed fibres and plastics, and that working with Deakin will help them scale and speed up the process.

Unlike mechanical recycling, which lowers the quality of materials over time, Samsara Eco’s enzymatic depolymerisation technology enables worn or contaminated textiles to be remade into materials equal in quality to new ones. Distinguished Professor Colin Barrow, Chair in Biotechnology at Deakin, explained that their research focuses on how chemical treatments such as dyes and finishes impact fibre breakdown and rebuilding, aiming to produce high-performance recycled materials from all waste types.

Associate Professor Chris Hurren from Deakin’s Institute for Frontier Materials added that by testing recycled materials in real-world processing, the team is refining the recycling pipeline and moving closer to large-scale closed-loop textile recycling. He believes this technology could transform the textile industry, reducing emissions and waste while offering economic benefits.