Flat knitting machine builder Stoll, part of the Karl Mayer Group, has been working on a revolutionary, sustainable facemask project with Indorama Ventures and dyeing expert DyeCoo in Reutlingen.

As the worldwide Covid-19 outbreak enters its second year, masks remain in high demand. While facemasks serve to prevent the infection from spreading and protect the wearer, they also contribute to environmental issues such as waste and pollution.

Indorama Ventures, DyeCoo, and Stoll collaborated on Easy Mask to create a trendy mask with a sustainable mindset across the whole manufacturing process, beginning with yarn production and continuing through dyeing, design, and manufacture.

The mask uses the advanced technology of the three firms to not only remove waste but also to save water and energy. The design approach also ensures that all components may be simply removed and reused for new masks.

Indorama's Deja, a sustainable, recycled polyester, is the basic material utilized in the Easy Mask manufacturing process. This polyester performance yarn is manufactured entirely of 100% post-consumer recycled PET bottles and can be utilized in a variety of home and garment applications. The yarn is GRS, Ecomark, RCS, Oeko-Tex 100, and Reach certified and traceable, with complete transparency across raw materials and processes.

Locally sourced 100% post-consumer rPET materials, as Stoll points out, have a minimal carbon impact and provide a closed-loop solution. Deja is 100% recyclable at the end of its life cycle and can be reprocessed several times without emitting hazardous emissions or discharges to generate new high-value-added goods.

The Deja recycled yarn is then colored utilizing Dutch company DyeCoo's CleanDye factory's revolutionary Supercritical Carbon Dioxide textile dyeing method.

Over the last ten years, DyeCoo has developed, improved, and commercialized the use of carbon dioxide to dye textiles, a process that is now also suitable for dyeing yarns.

The company claims to be the world’s first commercial supplier of water-free and process chemical-free dyeing solutions for polyester textiles. The sc-CO2 dyeing machines can dye yarns or fabric rolls in a closed-loop process without the use of water or process chemicals, resulting in reducing the production of any wastewater. When compared to traditional methods, energy usage is also greatly reduced.

The textile dyeing method has a lower environmental effect than standard dyeing methods since it uses only Colourtex's pure non-toxic Corangar dyestuff in conjunction with sc-CO2 that is 95% recovered in the machine. Carbon Dioxide has the same quality every day and throughout the world, making the technique trustworthy and repeatable, according to DteCoo.

The benefits of using Deja recycled polyester and CO2 dyeing technology to create a more sustainable product are then strengthened at the design and production stages.

Easy Mask is described as a novel design approach to reinterpreting a traditional medical facemask from a design perspective.

Environmental and sustainable aspects are considered in both the production technique and the design itself. While delivering tailored, on-demand production to decrease product excess, the seamless manufacturing approach avoids cut and sew and lowers waste material. Repetitive usage is allowed after washing at 60°C, and all of the mask components may be readily removed and re-used for subsequent masks.