BASF, Zara collaborate on PA6 made from 100% chemically recycled textile waste

In a world first for the textile-to-textile recycling industry, BASF has launched a polyamide 6 (PA6) grade made from 100% textile waste, under the brand name loopamid.

In parallel, Spanish clothing brand Zara, owned by fashion giant Inditex, unveiled a jacket made from loopamid. The jacket is designed for recyclability with all its parts - fabrics, buttons, filling, hook, loop, and zipper - being 100% made of loopamid.

BASF developed the circular material by chemically recycling PA6 textile waste of post-industrial and post-consumer origin. In particular, the Germany-based chemicals company uses depolymerisation technology to break the polyamide back to its monomers. After purification and polymerisation, the newly synthesised polymer is melted and extruded to form long fibres. These fibres are then spun into yarn using traditional textile spinning methods.

“BASF has reached an important milestone towards circularity in the fashion industry and pioneered an approach to close the loop for nylon textiles,” said Dr. Ramkumar Dhruva,president of BASF’s monomers division. “Our loopamid has the potential to revolutionise the PA6 market for the better. We are in the process of scaling up our technology to serve our customers with commercial quantities. The capsule jacket together with Inditex is the proof that circularity is possible, and we are eager to further drive the sustainable transformation of the textile industry.” 

This is not BASF’s first venture into the chemical recycling of PA6. Its Ccycled grade of PA6 has made its way into furniture products, for example. That polymer grade, however, was chemically recycled through pyrolysis and used waste electronics as feedstock.

BASF is one of the leading manufacturers of PA6 and its precursors, with production sites in Europe, Asia and North America.  Plastic-based or synthetic textiles make up about 60% of textiles in Europe, where consumers discard about 5.8 million tonnes of textiles annually, around 11 kg per person.

Last October, Accelerating Circularity created the Alliance of Chemical Textile Recycling (ACTR) to provide the textile industry with a common voice on textile chemical recycling.