Sweet deal for stretch
With an in investment of $1 billion, Hyosung is showing a strong commitment to renewable resources for its elastane offerings.
“The bio business will become a core pillar of Hyosung for the next 100 years” – a far-sighted statement from the Korean group’s chairman Hyun-Joon Cho as it announced a $1 billion investment in bio-based butanediol (BDO). A key ingredient in elastane, bio-BDO will be made using a process developed by US-based biomaterials developer Geno, and the funding will enable the building of a new manufacturing facility in Vietnam to enhance Hyosung’s existing site and create a full-service chain from raw ingredient to fibre.
The move is underpinned by a vision of the textiles industry of the future, as customer sentiment moves towards sustainable options and regulation demands transparent chains with renewable, circular or recycled inputs. Suppliers are working hard to enable brands to make better choices for their customers and the planet. “While we are at the start of the value chain, we also spend a lot of time at brand and retail level, talking to customers about elastane, what are they looking for, what the challenges are and how can we work together,” Hyosung’s global sustainability director, Simon Whitmarsh-Knight, tells WSA. “Regulations and consumer awareness are changing the industry, so we like to work in partnership with brands and retailers to make sure they are getting what they need.”
Geno’s genesis
Geno, formerly known as Genomatica, has been building its biobased materials processes for more than 15 years, with a focus on shifting from non-renewable raw materials to those made from plants or waste. It produced its first biobased BDO in 2008, scaling it up with French biochemicals group Novamont in 2016. A year later, it made a biobased butylene glycol (used in shampoos and lotions) for the beauty industry, and in 2020 partnered Italy’s Aquafil for a plant-based nylon, used by Canadian brand Lululemon. Geno now sits on a portfolio of 1,800 patents and applications following investments of more than $300 million.
Conventional BDO, often made from coal from China, is used to produce 2.5 million tonnes of polymers every year and is a $5 billion a year industry, according to Geno’s estimates. BDO is a precursor to polyteramethylene ether glycol, PTMG, a major chemical intermediate that can be used to create everything from automotive plastics to electronics and shoes, and is combined with MDI, an isocyanate, to make elastane. Geno’s technology uses various forms of sugar sources – industrial corn, sugarcane and sugar beets – and licenses the know-how to chemicals or fibre groups. “The licensing business model is well-understood in the chemical industry,” says Christophe Schilling, co-founder and CEO of Genomatica. “We provide the entire package, including engineering designs, how to operate it, as well as the microbe that does the magic inside the fermentation tanks, converting sugar into BDO.”
Earlier this year, Hyosung received approval from the provincial government in southern Vietnam to produce bio-BDO at its factory in southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, manufacture PTMG at a nearby factory in Dong Nai and then use this to mass-produce Regen Bio elastane at the Dong Nai spandex factory. It will mean the raw material will be derived from sugar cane, not the commercial industrial corn that it is currently using. “Although we will have to import the sugar cane from suitable supply chains, we will have a plant that can then make the whole product to the finished elastane, so that will mean a significant reduction in carbon emissions, as we are doing it all in one site,” says Mr Whitmarsh-Knight.
Hyosung commercialised USDA- and SGS-certified biobased elastane made with 30% industrial corn in 2022, which has a 20% lower carbon footprint than a comparable conventionally made elastane, according to an independent lifecycle assessment (LCA).
Hyosung’s current biobased elastane offering – under its brand name Regen Bio – now includes options made with higher bio-based content derived from renewable resources. LCAs for the higher-content versions are due soon. “It is so important that both the recycled and biobased products have the same high performance as the virgin elastane, in terms of stretch, recovery and modulus, for instance,” says Mr Whitmarsh-Knight. “We have done thousands of trials with mills around the world that are using the fibre in knitted fabric, woven fabric and footwear, and it is performing in exactly the same way.”
Regulatory stick
With manufacturers and suppliers investing heavily in R&D and more sustainable products, there is a nervousness in some sectors about whether buyers will place the necessary volumes to fund their production and development. A slew of incoming regulations that will demand a more sustainable footprint for products sold in Europe – the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products regulation and Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles among them – should provide the nudge many are waiting for. “We will also need to see two or three leading retailers and brands really get behind new technologies, as that will then make the real difference. That needs strong leadership,” he says. The digitalisation of the supply chain, as companies prepare for Europe’s Digital Product Passport rules (where each item will need to show information related to sustainability and circularity) should also boost ‘lower-impact’ textiles, as materials and ingredients will be more transparent and trackable, he suggests.
The need for more ‘sustainable’ versions of elastane is pressing, as the global apparel market grows. Although it makes up only around 1% of global fibre production, it carries “outsized importance” given that it is found in a large volume of products, according to the US-based Textile Exchange. In its 2023 Materials Report, the non-profit said elastane fibre production is increasing slowly but steadily, rising from 1.16 million tonnes in 2021 to 1.24 million tonnes in 2022.
Despite millions of dollars pouring into research around the recycling of elastane, it remains a sticking point, which is one reason producers are heading down the bio route, that is offering an alternative way into ‘more sustainable’ elastane. The Lycra Company has partnered US-based Qore, also using Geno’s technology, to produce a portion of its BDO from industrial corn from next year onwards.
“Recycling is the holy grail for any spandex producer because all elastane has the same problem, that above a certain content, it’s not currently possible to recycle,” explains Mr Whitmarsh-Knight. “There is a great deal of investment and science and technology looking at this space. Our ultimate goal is to make elastane with renewable resources and also have the technology to make it recyclable. That’s the overall direction of travel.” Despite the difficulties faced with recycling, the share of recycled elastane was estimated to be about 3% of global elastane fibre production volumes in 2022, according to the Textile Exchange.
The new biobased elastane will slot into Hyosung’s Regen portfolio, which includes recycled versions of 100% recycled elastane, made from post-industrial waste, as well as options such as Regen Ocean fibre, made from waste fishing nets; Regen Ocean polyester, made from ocean-bound plastic; and Regen Xanadu, made with a blend of recycled post-consumer PET and corn-based materials. In June, it announced a partnership with Ambercycle to make textile-to-textile, circular polyester available to textiles manufacturers in South Korea. “The industry is still looking at various sustainability options – is recycled better, or biobased, or is it something completely new coming down the line?” Mr Whitmarsh-Knight says. “Until the industry decides to go down one avenue, we want to offer a complete range of solutions.”
Geno’s technology converts sugar from sugarcane into the building blocks it needs to create a biobased BDO.
Credit: shutterstock.com
