Researchers explore agricultural waste for making textiles

A recent study by researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden has introduced a new direction for sustainable textile production. While most current efforts focus on using cellulose from wood to make eco-friendly fabrics, the researchers suggest that agricultural waste could also serve as a reliable source of cellulose.

The team experimented with different agricultural by-products such as oat husks, wheat straw, potato pulp, and sugar beet pulp. Among these, oat husks and wheat straw showed the most promising results in producing dissolving pulp, the key ingredient for textile manufacturing.

“With the method we refined in this study, we demonstrate that it’s possible to produce textile pulp from specific types of agricultural waste,” said Diana Bernin, Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Chalmers, who led the research.

“This finding marks a major step toward using waste materials to make textiles, instead of relying on cotton, which has a high environmental impact, or wood, a valuable resource that needs to be conserved to protect the climate,” Bernin added.