Development of Sustainable Yarns from an Innovative Combination of European Hemp and Pure Recycled Wool

Abstract

Currently, only a very small percentage of textiles is recycled; the majority is incinerated or sent to landfill. Due to the advancing climate change, the responsible use of available resources is becoming more important than ever. The process of rethinking begins in product development with the selection of raw materials. In the project “CannaReWool” (EFRE-0802000), German hemp and pure recycled wool are blended, spun and knitted into fabrics. The aim of the project is to produce knitted fabrics that can be recycled in a closed loop due to their novel combination of materials. The aim is to determine the most suitable settings and spinning components to ensure a stable rotor spinning process. The evaluation is based on the number of yarn breaks per rotor hour. The trials are carried out on the Schlafhorst Autocoro 480 rotor spinning machine. As both fibers, hemp and recycled wool, are very short and lack fiber to fiber cohesion, it becomes apparent that no settings can be found that give the spinning process sufficient stability. The results of the Uster Tester 6 and the Textechno Statimat tests show that the yarns contain a high amount of imperfections and the tensile strength values are low. Nonetheless the yarn is successfully knitted into fabrics on a Stoll ADF flat knitting machine. In the course of the project, the knitting trials will be continued and areas of application for the fabrics will be determined.