Jeans, T-shirts, sports jackets – textiles are part of our everyday lives. But what if, one day, the fabric of our clothing were spun from pine needles or made from mushrooms? Researchers at the West Saxon University of Applied Sciences in Zwickau are working on such materials for sustainable textiles. They now have a new technical facility at their disposal for this purpose. It is the largest research and teaching building in the university’s history.
Saxony’s Minister of Science, Sebastian Gemkow (CDU), has now officially handed over the 27-meter-tall building to Rector Prof. Stephan Kassel. The striking building on Dr.-Friedrichs-Ring is one of the tallest structures in downtown Zwickau. With 4,000 square meters of usable space spread across five floors, laboratories, practical training rooms, and research areas are now available. These facilities serve the fields of textile engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry, and environmental and process engineering.
Mushrooms, Pine Needles, and the Forest as Sources of Raw Materials
Two projects in particular are quite unusual and offer a glimpse into the future of research at the technical center. In the Confitex project, researchers are investigating whether textile fibers for sustainable textiles can be extracted from pine needles. This raw material is produced in large quantities in forestry and has hardly been used to date. In the long term, it could be turned into yarn for technical textiles or other applications.
The FungiMat project focuses on materials derived from fungi. Researchers are using fungal mycelium – a fine network of fungal threads that normally grows in the soil – for this purpose. Combined with biopolymers – that is, biodegradable plastics – this is intended to create new composite materials. In the future, these could replace packaging, insulation materials, or certain plastic products, for example.
With the new technical center, the university is bringing together its expertise in textile research at a single location for the first time. The researchers hope this will foster new collaborations between materials science, mechanical engineering, chemistry, and textile engineering. The total project cost 46.2 million euros. About half of the funding comes from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
