Valorisation of CO2 waste streams into polyester for a sustainable circular textile industry

Threading-CO2 aims to scale-up and demonstrate its first-of-its-kind technology producing high-quality commercially viable sustainable PET textile products from CO2 waste streams at industrial scale (TRL7) using a circular manufacturing approach and running on renewable energy sources.

The overall objective of Threading-CO2 is to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of the textile industry by demonstrating and bringing to the market high-quality polyester textile products from the valorization of CO2 waste streams.

Kicked off on January 1^st, 2023, the Threading-CO2 project addresses the call topic HORIZON-CL4-2022-TWIN-TRANSITION-01-11: Valorisation of CO/CO2 streams into added-value products of market interest (Processes4Planet Partnership) and has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement N° 101092257.

The Threading-CO2 consortium has been selected to bring together the skills and expertise necessary to realize first in class technology capable to use CO2 as feedstock to produce polyester. The Threading-CO2 partnership is built to have all required skills (CO2 supplier, carbon capture, electrolysis, hydrogenation, bio catalyzers), complementary experimental facilities (field platforms able to host various trials with different kinds of protocols and measurement complexity, controlled environment platform able to reach an industrial scale), and collaborative networks to connect with stakeholder groups essential to the project (Dissemination, Communication and Exploitation). In Threading-CO2, leaders in the textile industry were also identified and involved in the project to guarantee product quality at the final stage of the value chain.

13 partners from 7 EU counties involved in the THREADING-CO2 gathered on January 23^rd and 24^th, 2023 in Paris, France, to present and review the project objectives, activities, and work plan.