Feature

The Unusuals
By Corrie Pelc

24 | AATCC Review

Vol. 15, No. 5

September/October 2015

Delivered by Ingenta to: University of Georgia
IP: 95.181.177.100 On: Mon, 06 Jun 2016 15:58:55

Feature

W

hen considering the different types of natural
raw materials used to make fibers for textiles,
sources like the cotton plant, flax plant, silk worm,
merino sheep, and even wood pulp typically come to
mind. However, nowadays new fibers are emerging
from unexpected raw materials as researchers and fiber
manufacturers look for alternative “natural” fibers—
and these new fibers bring unique, interesting, and
powerful physical properties to the table as well as,
sometimes, a more sustainable natural alternative to
their synthetic counterparts.
The only question remaining is, where do these new
natural fibers come from?

September/October 2015

Vol. 15, No. 5

Delivered by Ingenta to: University of Georgia
IP: 95.181.177.100 On: Mon, 06 Jun 2016 15:58:55

AATCC Review | 25

Feature

From Under the Sea
SeaCell fiber, made by smartfiber AG, is made
from a blend of cellulose (from wood pulp) and
seaweed—specifically Ascophyllum nodosum, also
known as rockweed or knotted kelp, which can be
found in the Icelandic fjords, according to smartfiber’s Marketing Director, Natalia Kohne.
“The island’s estuaries reach far into the mainland
and usually harbor very steep slopes, and offer
an untouched paradise for all land and marine
animals,” she explains. “The fjords are sparsely
populated—there is no waste and no ship trafficking that can pollute this naturally-sustaining
microcosm.”
According to Kohne, smartfiber holds to high
sustainability and environmental standards for its
fibers. For instance, seaweed is only harvested every
four years in a certain section to help ensure the
seaweed continues to grow. To do this, Kohne says
they use special harvesting machines with blade
wheels that do not affect the ecosystem.
Kohne says smartfiber developed SeaCell in an
effort to produce a fiber that combined natural

26 | AATCC;  Review

Vol. 15, No. 5

cellulose with the unique advantages of seaweed,
which she says are well-known in the cosmetic and
healthcare industries. “The seaweed in SeaCell is
rich in antioxidants—valuable substances that provide protection for the skin against environmental
influences,” she explains.
These benefits, plus the fiber’s softness properties,
have lent it to be used in a variety of textile applications that would have direct contact with a person’s
skin, such as undergarments, socks, T-shirts, blankets, bed linens, towels, and shoe linings.

From the Fields
NatureWorks LLC produces Ingeo biopolymer.
According to Robert Green, global director fibers
and nonwovens for NatureWorks, Ingeo biopolymer
is made from 100% renewable resources—dextrose,
a plant sugar, from number two field corn.
Green says that NatureWorks turned to number
two field corn because it is the most abundantly
available sugar source in North America. Thus, the
corn is a cost-effective raw material source. Since
the factory is located in the heartland of North
American corn production in Blair, NE, USA the

September/October 2015

Delivered by Ingenta to: University of Georgia
IP: 95.181.177.100 On: Mon, 06 Jun 2016 15:58:55

AMERICA’S COTTON PRODUCERS AND IMPORTERS. Service Marks/Trademarks of Cotton Incorporated. © 2015 Cotton Incorporated.

Today, cotton’s natural properties can be enhanced
through

application

of

new

technological

innovations that reinvent cotton as a true
performance fiber. Through the use of Cotton
Incorporated’s

branded

technologies,

you’ll

discover cotton can be engineered to manage
moisture as well as or better than many topperforming synthetics. So it looks like the future
is full of cotton.

cottoninc.com

Delivered by Ingenta to: University of Georgia
IP: 95.181.177.100 On: Mon, 06 Jun 2016 15:58:55

corn is also very locally sourced. “Over 80% of our
raw material comes from within a 50-mile radius of
our factory,” he says.
To make Ingeo, Green says the dextrose component of the corn goes through a fermentation
process to produce a very high purity lactic
acid. The acid then goes through a secondary step to form a lactide, which, during
polymerization, is converted into a highmolecular biopolymer.
Green says some nonwoven manufacturers use Ingeo to produce meltblown or
spunbond fabrics, while fiber producers create staple fibers or continuous
filaments. Textile applications for Ingeo
include geotextiles and horticultural
applications, home furnishings, and
apparel. Green says the company’s also
seeing a lot of interest in the sunshade
and window treatment markets, since
Ingeo is very UV stable. “From a UV
stability standpoint, Ingeo actually outperforms acrylics and is far better than other
synthetic polymers,” he explains.
For the future, Green says NatureWorks is
considering looking at other sugar sources as

Ingeo resin. Photo courtesy Natureworks LLC.

28 | AATCC Review

Vol. 15, No. 5

September/October 2015

Delivered by Ingenta to: University of Georgia
IP: 95.181.177.100 On: Mon, 06 Jun 2016 15:58:55

potential raw materials for Ingeo. He says the company continues to work to better understand the
strengths and weaknesses of materials made from
Ingeo to broaden its performance window.

From Weeds
The stinging nettle—which can be quite painful if
encountered—grows in abundance in the UK. It was
the nettle’s rapid renewability and total compostability that gave Camira Fabrics Ltd. the idea to use nettle
fiber in their textile products, according to Camira’s
Director of Marketing, Ian Burn.
“Nettles are grown on farmland that is largely unsuitable for arable crops, and they grow very quickly and
easily without the use of pesticides and herbicides,”
he explains. “Nettle plants grow quickly from springtime onwards and are harvested in late summer.
They are a perennial plant, so the cycle continues the
following year.”
Burn says the fiber is extracted cleanly from the nettle
plant through a dry mechanical process. The nettle
fiber is then blended with wool to produce the fabrics
in Camira’s Nettle Collection, which currently features
three textile patterns. Burn says the Nettle Collection
textiles are currently being used in contract seating
applications in commercial offices, education, and
hospitality for both task and lounge-type seating.

September/October 2015

Vol. 15, No. 5

Delivered by Ingenta to: University of Georgia
IP: 95.181.177.100 On: Mon, 06 Jun 2016 15:58:55

AATCC Review | 29

P H O T O C O U R T E S Y K R A I G B I O C R A F T L A B O R AT O R I E S .

Monster Silk moths on cocoons.

According to Burn, the wool and nettle fiber blend
produces a fabric that is naturally and inherently
flame retardant without requiring any chemical
treatment. “The aesthetic is gorgeous, with slightly
different dye uptake between the wool and nettle,”
he adds.

From Bugs
Although silk worms have been producing silk for
centuries, Kraig Biocraft Laboratories Inc. wanted
to see if they could get these insects to produce a
higher-performing fiber. To do this, they turned to
the spider, says COO Jon Rice.
“The spider has this wonderfully tough fiber—a
combination of both strength and elasticity,” Rice
explains. “The problem is, due to their cannibalistic
nature, spiders can’t co-exist [in captivity]. They live
a very solitary life, making farming them impractical.” He says that their challenge was to identify
the genes that give spiders’ silk its extraordinary
strength and flexibility properties and incorporate
these genes into silk worms.
Unlike spiders, silk worms have been domesticated
and used in making textile fibers for more than
5,000 years. Incredibly docile, most varieties of the

30 | AATCC Review

Vol. 15, No. 5

silk-producing caterpillars used in commercial silk
production aren’t able to breed or survive without
human intervention.
After being able to identify the elements in the
spider’s genetic code that produces its silk protein,
Rice says Kraig Biocraft Laboratories was able to
splice that code into silk worms, thus creating silk
worms able to produce silk with a spider’s silk
proteins. The result was a recombinant spider silk
called Monster Silk.
According to Rice, Monster Silk fibers have a significantly high tensile strength and excellent elasticity.
Although not currently being used in commercial
textile applications, Rice says these benefits have
been leading them to explore such textile markets
as military and protective apparel applications.
Another key property of spider silk is its ability to be
integrated with living tissue without rejection—perfect for the medical market in such applications as
stitches, implantables, and skin grafts.

From Slime
The hagfish is an eel-shaped fish with glands on its
body that produce a sticky slime if the fish is threatened or under attack from predators. After noticing

September/October 2015

Delivered by Ingenta to: University of Georgia
IP: 95.181.177.100 On: Mon, 06 Jun 2016 15:58:55

P H O T O C O U R T E S Y K R A I G B I O C R A F T L A B O R AT O R I E S .

Feature

Big red silk under UV light.

the impressive tensile properties of this slimy
substance, Douglas Fudge, associate professor at the
department of Integrative Biology at the University
of Guelph, wondered if his team could learn how
the hagfish makes its strong slime fibers and apply
those principles to the manufacture of sustainable
protein materials.
“We knew about efforts to make artificial spider silk
fibers and all the challenges those researchers were
facing, and thought that slime threads might be a
simpler biomimetic model,” Fudge explains. “We
imagined that protein-based fibers could one day
replace petroleum-based synthetics.”
In order to study the protein fibers in the hagfish
slime, Fudge’s research team had to isolate them.
This is done by collecting the contents of hagfish
slime glands from anaesthetized hagfish and stirring
it into a stabilization buffer. “We can then separate
the thread bundles from the mucous component of
the slime via a simple filtration step,” he says.

commercial product, he sees a number of textile
applications for this type of protein-based fiber,
especially those that currently use synthetics.

Toward an Unusual Future
In the search for new fiber properties and more
sustainable fiber raw materials, fiber and textile
researchers and producers continue to think
outside the box. As the unusual raw materials
mentioned in this article have demonstrated, there
are many avenues available besides the run-ofthe-mill for the industry to produce yarn and
fabric with unique physical properties and to give
customers more eco-friendly options. It’s time to
look for the unexpected!

Researchers have also been looking at ways to genetically engineer the hagfish slime proteins, and Fudge
says the long-term goal is to make the proteins using
expression vectors like bacteria. Although Fudge
says they are still years away from developing a

DOI: 10.14504/ar.15.5.1

September/October 2015

Vol. 15, No. 5

Delivered by Ingenta to: University of Georgia
IP: 95.181.177.100 On: Mon, 06 Jun 2016 15:58:55

AATCC Review | 31