New study to explore upcycling the microfibres released from laundering clothes

Microfibres are defined as tiny ‘threads’, defined as smaller than 5mm, that break off from garments through the everyday acts of cleaning and wearing our clothes. [1] Every year more than half a million tons of microfibres are released into the world’s oceans simply from washing our clothes. [2] Research shows that microfibres from synthetic textiles (known as microplastics) are the biggest source of microplastic pollution in our oceans (2) - they have contaminated the entire planet from the summit of Mount Everest [3] to the Mariana Trench. [4]

In order to address this significant environmental problem, Xeros Technology developed a washing machine filtration device, XFilter, which captures the microfibres and prevents them from being released into our oceans.

XFilter lasts the lifetime of a washing machine and allows users to place the captured microfibres directly into their bin to be disposed of with other household waste, as we already do with vacuum cleaners and tumble driers that collect similar mixed fibres. Microfibre waste from filtration is a complex material to recycle within existing recycling infrastructure: not only are the microfibres often mixed materials, but they also contain captured dirt and soil.

This is why Xeros have teamed up the University of Surrey – to accelerative research into improved methods to permanently reduce this continued pollution build-up in the future.

Led by Dr Duyar, the team from the University of Surrey and North Carolina State University have developed a new method specifically designed to upcycle textile micro/nano fibres shed during the washing and drying of clothes. The method produces clean hydrogen and solid carbon nanomaterials as a by-product.

The carbon nanomaterials developed using this upcycling method can be used in various essential products including batteries, solar cells and medical devices.

The project will begin in January 2023 with research conducted over a 12-month period.

About Xeros

Powered by science, Xeros create technologies engineered for the future.

Born out of textile research and advancing new standards of performance and responsibility, Xeros’ technologies revolutionise the way we make and clean our clothes, conserving water and preventing waste. Designed to impact industries and people on a global scale, they transform the performance, impact and economics of the fashion and washing machine industry.

Xeros enable the scaling of their innovations and impact by licencing their intellectual property to partners across the globe. Their work has, to date, created 38 patent families.

Xeros’ technologies are already in use in major global industries, including commercial and home laundry and garment manufacture. So far, these technologies have saved millions of litres of water and could prevent billions of microfibres from ending in our oceans.

Xeros. To the power of change.

References

[1] Microfibre Consortium. Microfibre shedding. Professor Richard Thompson OBE FRS et al. Lost at Sea: Where Is All the Plastic? 2004.

[2] Julien Boucher, Damien Friot. Primary Microplastics in the Oceans. 2017.

[3] Napper I. et al. Reaching New Heights in Plastic Pollution—Preliminary Findings of Microplastics on Mount Everest. 2020.

[4] Peng et al. Microplastics contaminate the deepest part of the world’s ocean. European Association of Geochemistry. 2018.