Clothing is one of the primary human needs, but today’s business models turned most apparel into a disposable product. As a matter of fact, the rising demand results in the production of Millions of tons of textile waste every year which is either landfilled, incinerated or exported, with only small amounts being recycled. One promising recycling attempt towards a circular economy in the apparel sector is fibre-to-fibre recycling, where end-of-use clothes serve as input material for the production of new fibres and, eventually, new apparel. In this work, together with fashion brands and a textile research organisation, a mapping of the market situation and the economic boundary conditions regarding textile fibre recycling are presented. Generally, fibre-to-fibre recycling technologies need more public attention and intensive research, and development is necessary as well as legislative instruments that encourage interest in textile recycling. The market situation for recycled fibres is promising and will tend to an increased demand in recycled fibres in the future. Mandatory certification ensures a sustainable product and fast fashion should be held back. Textile waste landfilling, export regulations as well as sustainable lifestyle education shall be considered by EU legislature to ensure that recycling materials are actually used and create a market pull for textile waste back into the industry.

Global fibre production has expanded rapidly, with polyester and cotton dominating, significantly contributing to textile waste and increasing demand for sustainable solutions. This study presents innovative method to recycle polyester/cotton (PET/CO) blends using hydrophobic deep eutectic solvents (DESs), eliminating the need for toxic chemicals while achieving high dissolution yields. PET was completely dissolved within 5 min, substantially outperforming state-of-the-art methods and facilitating the efficient and selective recovery of both components, PET (97%) and CO (100%). SEM imaging confirmed no morphological changes in cotton fibres after treatment. The thermal stability of the recovered materials was validated using DSC and TGA analyses, while ATR-FTIR spectroscopy indicated no chemical changes. Mechanical testing confirmed recovered cotton's tenacity and elongation are within expected ranges despite showing a decrease of 28% in tenacity and 34% in elongation. Hence, the proposed process provides an efficient and sustainable recycling solution for PET/CO blends, retaining both polymers in a condition similar to virgin materials used in textile manufacturing with minimal processing time.

The increasing demand for high-performance activated carbon necessitates applying sustainable and cost-effective production methods. This study explores the use of biochar derived from renewable biomass. The primary feedstock for biochar consisted of woody residues from composting, along with pre-dried sunflower seed shells that had a moisture content of around 10% as a precursor for the production of activated carbon. The process started with carbonization followed by potassium hydroxide (KOH) activation. Key parameters such as the impregnation ratio, temperature, and activation time were optimized to enhance the physicochemical properties of the activated carbon. Under optimized conditions, namely a KOH-to-biochar impregnation ratio of 3:1, an activation temperature of 800 °C, and an activation duration of 5 h, the yield of activated carbon was 58% and the specific surface area was 498 m²/g. A significant enhancement in surface area, with a maximum value of 709 m²/g, was achieved after increasing the time to 24 h of activation. Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) analysis was applied to evaluate the CO₂ adsorption performance of both biochar and activated biochar at 30 °C, demonstrating a 30% improvement in adsorption efficiency following activation. This study underscores the potential of biochar as a renewable and sustainable precursor for the production of high-performance activated carbon. This study underscores the potential of biochar derived from agro residue as a source for the production of high-performance activated carbon. The findings contribute to the advancement of environmentally friendly production technologies and highlight the potential applicability of biochar-derived activated carbon in gas adsorption and environmental remediation.

Graphene nanosheets from suspensions are key to applications such as in printable films, battery/supercapacitor electrodes, fillers in composite materials or catalyst supports. We present a straightforward method for achieving high-concentration and long-term stable graphene suspensions by liquid phase exfoliation (LPE) via a combination of ammonia (NH₃) as an easily removable additive together with low-boiling point, benign organic-water co-solvent mixtures as suspension media. We find that the addition of small amounts of NH₃ as an additive drastically improves the obtainable LPE graphene concentrations by up to 2 orders of magnitude for a wide range of organic-water co-solvent mixtures including with isopropanol, methanol, ethanol, 1-propanol, tetrahydrofuran, acetonitrile, acetone, ethylene glycol and tert-butanol. With our approach we readily reach current benchmark graphene concentration values of ~180 mg·L^-1 that are normally only obtainable using hard-to-remove high-boiling-point and hazardous standard solvents like dimethylformamide and 1-methyl-2-pyrrolydone or with hard-to-remove surfactants. Notably, NH₃ as an additive is highly volatile and thus, as we show, easily removable without degrading the produced high quality graphene nanosheets.