Acid Hydrolysis of Cellulose-based Waste Textiles

Abstract

The present study focused on conversion of cellulosic part of waste textiles into biogas and its challenges. The annual global fiber consumption exceeded 70 Mt with a cellulosic fraction of around 40%. This huge amount of fiber is further processed into apparel, home textiles and industrial products and after a certain time delay end up in waste streams. This amount of cellulose has the potential of production of approximately 20 billion liters of ethanol. Assuming a good collection and waste management system, however, there are still challenges facing the process of conversion. For instance, high crystallinity of cotton cellulose makes it hard to achieve enzymatic or bacterial hydrolysis. In addition, waste textiles are composed of different materials including natural and synthetic fibers, and the cellulosic fibers should be separated from the other materials. Furthermore, presence of dyes and reagents in the fibers can also be challenging in the bioprocessing of textile waste. In the present work, we examined the process of dilute acid hydrolysis of viscose and cotton (i.e. jeans) textiles. Hydrolyses were performed at different lengths of time (8 and 15 min), temperatures (180 and 200 °C), and acid concentrations (0.5, 1.5, and 3% w/w). Hydrolysis of viscose and jeans under identical conditions resulted in significantly different yields of glucose. This may be due to differences in the structure, i.e. high crystalline cellulose in jeans and low crystalline cellulose in viscose