Insulation materials are used in almost all areas. Today, they are often made from non-sustainable materials such as polyester, glass wool or foams. In most cases, these products have to be disposed of at great expense and are difficult or impossible to recycle. The use of bio-based aerogel fibre insulation materials should help to make a wide range of applications more sustainable and thus reduce the overall carbon footprint of the product while increasing its insulation performance.

Aerogels are highly porous materials that can consist of 99.8% air and therefore provide a high level of thermal insulation while minimising weight and material thickness. Aerogels therefore offer innovative solutions for a wide range of applications. In the textile and construction industries, for example, aerogels make it possible to minimise heat loss and thus improve the energy efficiency of textiles and buildings. To date, aerogels have primarily been produced in the form of inorganic sheets (so-called monoliths) or as a fabric coating. The disadvantages of these aerogel products are that their production processes are very resource-intensive and time-consuming and they are difficult to handle and process due to their brittleness. In addition, they are only recyclable to a very limited extent, making them unsustainable overall. To date, aerogel-based insulations have been niche products, as they cannot compete with conventional insulations in terms of price. The ITA has succeeded in developing a cost-effective and industrially scalable manufacturing process for insulating textiles made from 100 % aerogel fibres.  Cellulose aerogel textiles are not only sustainable, but also very flexible and drapable compared to conventionally rigid or brittle aerogel products, which means that they can also be processed on conventional textile machines. The development at the ITA promises a new, globally unique, sustainable, highly efficient insulation material that combines the advantages of textiles (flexibility & good processability) with those of aerogels (very low weight & very good thermal insulation). 

Elasticity is the ability of a textile to stretch or recover when required. This has a direct effect on functionality. Currently, elasticity in textiles is almost exclusively provided by so-called "elastanes".

Elastanes are elastic filament yarns that are usually made from fossil-based elastomeric polyurethanes. The estimated production volume is around 1.22 million tonnes per year. The elastomeric character requires the use of dry spinning technologies for yarn production, which leads to challenges such as low production speeds and therefore comparatively expensive yarns.

In addition, potentially hazardous and environmentally harmful solvents must be used - an appropriate occupational safety concept is therefore essential. At the end of the product life cycle, dry-spun elastanes impair recycling because the individual components of the textile cannot be separated with technically and economically justifiable effort.  These challenges can be solved by using elastic, bio-based or CO2-containing TPU filament yarns.

In the CO2Tex project, TPU yarns were developed on industrial melt spinning systems using polymers with a renewable content of up to 18 per cent by weight. With elongations of up to 600 per cent, diverse and innovative applications can be developed, such as the lifestyle compression stocking exhibited here.

A key problem in the production of man-made fibres based on synthetic polymers is the dependence on fossil raw materials, which are subject to various ecological and, in the long term, economic and political risks due to their finite nature. Polymers based on renewable raw materials represent an alternative. To establish biobased polymers in the textile industry and to demonstrate their full potential is the aim of project BioBase. The cooperation between research institutes and industry partners runs through the complete textile value chain of the respective benchmark products to develop viable biobased alternatives. Industrially produced demonstrators for four key sectors of the textile industry in Germany (automotive, sportswear, interiors and geo) are being created to demonstrate the potential of the biobased polymers available on the market.

As part of the BioBase project, which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, interior textiles made from biopolymers are being developed together with Krall+Roth Produktions GmbH. In order to investigate the substitution potential of different biopolymers, an established, petroleum-based product is being modelled with polymers based on renewable raw materials. Therefore, commercially available bio-based polymers are selected, melt-spun into filament yarns, then air-texturised and further processed into fabrics. The manufacturing processes and machine settings along the textile value chain must be adapted to the respective material behaviour of the biopolymers. Using this process, fabrics made from four different (partially) bio-based polyamides were successfully realised for the interior sector. 

The aim of DEGRATEX is to develop bio-based, degradable solutions for geotextiles for short-term applications such as the temporary stabilisation of earth structures or vegetation protection. The materials fulfil their function until they can be taken over by natural components such as soil-stabilising or ground-covering plants.

As part of the project, various materials and textile structures for these applications are being researched and the effects of the degradation process on the surrounding environment are being scientifically assessed. In addition, the project aims to develop assessment and decision-making tools for the use of degradable geotextiles. The results will make it possible to replace conventional geotextiles with bio-based and degradable product solutions within a technically and ecologically sensible framework. In this way, material structures can be used resource-efficiently in applications, provide added value from a technical and functional point of view and reduce the use of petrochemical plastics for use in nature. 

Our objective is to develop an artificial turf structure made of bio- polyethylene (PE) similar to petroleum-based PE in terms of its key properties, with a mono-material structure to enable high- quality material recycling. Moreover, the new artificial turf structure will not require the addition of polymer infill granulate, thus solving the current microplastic challenge of artificial turf pitches. 

Nowadays, communities and local authorities increasingly deside to construct artificial sport turfs instead to natural one due to low-maintainance efforts. Compared to natural turf, they offer an intensively usable, weed-free and weather independent surface that does not need to be watered or fertilized and require a minimum of personnel care.
On the other hand, the raw material feedstock, the structure and the application of microplastic infill granulate, to provide appropriate playability, cause various challenges. Thus, the multilayered structure of artificial sport turfs, consisting of various components, is usually based on fossil raw materials. In addition, the variety of materials in the pile and base layers or the backing layer are difficult to be recycled, and finally, microplastic infill material risks to be released into the environment due to rain, wind and further weather condition, Once released, the microparticles are non-degradable and therefore create a significant environmental pollution. 
Due to this high environmental risk, the EU will ban „intentionally added microplastics“ i.a. for the construction of artificial turf pitches all across the European Union in the upcoming years.