The project targets one of textile circularity’s harder problems: recycling high-performance polyester and polyamide materials used in technical applications.
Albany International has reported progress in its collaboration with Swedish biotechnology company Cyclezyme AB to develop enzyme-based recycling processes for industrial textiles made mainly from polyester and polyamide. The work is aimed at technical and high-performance textile materials that currently have limited circular end-of-life routes.
A harder recycling category
The project is commercially important because industrial textiles are not like simple post-consumer apparel streams. They are engineered for durability, dimensional stability, chemical resistance and mechanical performance, which makes them difficult to recycle through conventional mechanical routes.
Albany’s materials are used across papermaking, construction materials, process industries, logistics and advanced manufacturing. In such applications, customers need performance first, but regulatory and sustainability pressures are increasing demand for credible recycling options.
Enzymes move beyond polyester
Cyclezyme has successfully depolymerized selected material samples, showing that some textile materials can be broken down into reusable chemical building blocks. The company has also worked on improving degradation efficiency and has developed several nylon-degrading enzymes for recycling nylon and other polyamide-based materials.
That is the strategic point. Many recycling technologies focus on one polymer stream. Albany says Cyclezyme’s approach is showing potential to depolymerize both polyester and nylon, which could make it more relevant for complex industrial textile systems.
From laboratory progress to industrial proof
The next phase will focus on analytical methods to evaluate enzyme activity, further process optimisation, and testing additional material streams. Albany and Cyclezyme have also begun discussions on scaling and future industrial applications.
For the technical textiles sector, the milestone is promising but still early-stage. The decisive test will be whether enzymatic depolymerization can handle real industrial waste streams at viable speed, cost, purity and scale.
If successful, the technology could give producers of paper machine clothing, industrial fabrics and other engineered textiles a stronger circularity proposition—without forcing customers to compromise the performance requirements that made these materials difficult to recycle in the first place.
