DyeRecycle Gives Dyes A Second Chance

United Kingdom-based DyeRecycle wants to “pioneer” chemical and fiber circularity within the textile industry.

The color and fiber innovation firm allegedly developed the first technology to recycle synthetic dyes from textile waste. DyeRecycle offers two solutions: recycled synthetic dye that can achieve industry-standard shades and white dye-free high-value fibers that can be respun into recycled polyester.

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This “transformative” technology has garnered industry attention. DyeReycycle has received $1.2 million in pre-seed funding and $1 million in equity-free match funding from Innovate UK. This round included participation from PDS Ventures, Octopus Ventures, Evenlode Foundation, Fashion for Good, and a suite of angel investors from the climate and fashion sectors.

“One of the key things about our technology is that it’s very timely,” co-founder Dr. Aida Abouelela told Sourcing Journal. “If we had developed this even five years ago, I think the fiber recycling market wouldn’t have been mature enough to have this conversation.”

One of the key barriers to effectively recycle textiles is the presence of dyes in the textile waste. Current large-scale mechanical fiber recycling practices sort garments based on color, which limits the final product to dark shades or requires subsequent dyeing steps. DyeRecycle’s technology addresses this challenge by providing decolored fibers.

The H&M Foundation Global Change Award winner’s proprietary technology combines the need to recycle dye and fabrics, developing circular solutions for dyeing using textile waste. The circular process uses a unique liquid that selectively extracts dyes from colored waste fabrics. The fabric can then be recycled more effectively. The extracted dye is transferred to new fabrics, creating a new concept of “recycled dyes,” offering a variety of vibrant colors that meet industry demand while maintaining industry standards of color fastness.

DyeRecycle said it uses a green chemistry-based solution, offering a circular model to extract, recover and recycle dyes from textile waste via selective decolorization of colored waste fibers. The process utilized green chemistry to “selectively extract” dyes from fibers, thus leaving behind clean and high-value (dye-free) fibers for mechanical and chemical recyclers. This process can reduce up to 85 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with virgin polyester manufacturing and incumbent dyeing processes.

“One of the key fundamental things that we have is the solvent selection and we very carefully examine the solvents,” Abouelela said. “One of the key aspects of the technology is the recyclability of the solvent, and this is something that is also quite unique for the solvents is that they can be quite easily recycled in a closed loop process.”

With this funding, the 2022 Fashion for Good innovator will expand its capacity to support production for its various pilots as well as secure further product development partnerships and trials with supply chain partners and fiber recyclers. The funds will also be used to grow the team to deliver technical and commercial scale-up, the firm said.

“In terms of the partnerships and scaling, they’re all kind of moving in parallel. This is all high priority, but we already have some of these things in the pipeline from before the funding round,” Abouelela said. “A lot of them are kickstarting at the moment so the pilots will be completed by the end of the year. And hopefully from that point, we can have proven enough of the scalability of the technology to go to the next round.”