Natural fibres are the preferred options for garment, technical and medical textiles, nonwovens and composites. Their sustainability is a considerable advantage, though the nature of silk production and processing involves a large amount of waste. The present review explores the current issues of recycling silk waste into nonwovens for various purposes. The article proposes obtaining nonwovens from short fibres using electrospinning of fibroin solutions in volatile solvents. Longer fibres are proposed to be processed into needle-punched nonwoven materials with a selection of an effective antistatic treatment.

The paper presents an effective antistatic composition for forming the web from silk waste on a carding machine. As a result, the needle punched nonwoven material modified with silver and copper nanoparticles was obtained from Bombyx mori natural silk. The specific surface area of the material is 0.223 m²/g, the average size of macropores is 85 μm; the minimum is 30 μm and the maximum is 370 μm. The holding capacity in case of dolomite dust is 99.4%. The presence of silver and copper nanoparticles gives the material antifungal properties that remain stable after no less than 4 washings.

Natural fibres are the preferred options for garment, technical and medical textiles, nonwovens and composites. Their sustainability is a considerable advantage. Though, the nature of silk production and processing involves a large amount of waste. The present review explores the current issues of recycling silk waste into nonwovens for medical and air filtration purposes. The article proposes to obtain nonwovens from short fibres using electrospinning of fibroin solutions in volatile solvents. Longer fibres are proposed to be processed into needle punched nonwoven materials with a selection of an effective antistatic treatment.

Hydrogen bonds formed upon dissolution of cellulose and cellobiose in ionic liquids, 1-butyl-3- methylpyridinium and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chlorides, have been analyzed and characterized by...