Grant: Idea to Innovation

The textile industry is a major contributor to climate change due to its heavy reliance on synthetic fibres. The annual global production of over 100 million tons of synthetic fibres, primarily derived from fossil fuels, has devastating environmental impacts. This production consumes water equivalent to 4 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, uses energy comparable to 800 Hoover Dams, and emits as much carbon dioxide as 1 billion cars. These fibres are literally choking the planet. Developing and commercializing sustainable alternatives to synthetic fibers is now an urgent necessity for both the textile industry and the environment. The proposed research aims to advance two interconnected areas: (1) creating novel biofibres designed specifically for performance, and (2) developing circular biomanufacturing processes that use waste as feedstock and produce biofibres with significantly reduced energy, water, and cost inputs. Using fermentation as the primary production method for entirely bio-derived fibres directly eliminates the carbon emissions, energy consumption, and water usage associated with manufacturing synthetic fibers from fossil fuels. Furthermore, our choice of host, production conditions, feedstock, and molecular composition of the biopolymer translates to exponential advantages in processability, which brings down costs and improves product yields. Our biofibres are cost-competitive with synthetic fibres and our bioprocess is circular and carbon-negative. The bioprocess also produces valuable co-products such as chitin, which further improves unit economics. The net offsets conservatively total 100 MJ of energy, 35 L of water, and 20 kg of carbon dioxide for every finished garment manufactured using our fibres.