Natural Polymer Textiles & Fibres for Sustainable Fashion Sector PhD

Natural polymers like cellulose, chitin, chitosan, alginate are one of the most abundant and renewable polymer with robust mechanical properties. However large-scale utilization of cellulose/chitin/chitosan has not been possible because it leaves a large environmental footprint due to the hazardous solvents used during its extraction/processing. We have developed an environmentally benign method for manufacturing of cellulose fibres using ionic liquid as a “green” solvent [Rahatekar et al, Polymer, 2010; Zhu et al, ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, 2016; Singh et al, Nanoscale, 2017]. 

In the fashion and clothing sector, there is a recent trend toward sustainable, environmental, and socially responsible manufactured and grown fibres and materials. This is due to a number of non-profit organisations [World Wide Fund and People for Ethical treatment of animals - PETA] had highlighted the impact on the environment and encouraged the use of sustainable materials and consumers use of social media had increased the awareness of impact of depletion of resources and environment. In terms of fibre consumption, synthetic fibre/filaments are predicted to increase in textiles and clothing sector, although natural fibre consumption remains low and is predicted to decrease. With the advent of fast fashion, there is a greater demand for mass produced products at low cost. This trend leads to reduced shelf life of products resulting in large landfill and waste of resources.

The cellulose and natural fibre manufacturing process developed in our lab can offer an excellent solution to sustainable textiles produce textiles for the fashion industry. Furthermore, the green fibre manufacturing process can be used to combine natural dyes such as curcumin, Indigo, pomegranate juice extract for eco-textiles or sustainable textiles for fashion industry. 

This project will develop textiles in Cranfield University (Dr Sameer Rahatekar) and the fashion design application in fashion industry in collaboration with Manchester Fashion Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University (Dr Prabhuraj). 

Dr Sameer Rahatekar is a world-renowned expert in dissolution and processing of natural polymers such as cellulose, chitin, alginate and silk using environmentally benign solvents. He has a strong research background on manufacturing multi-functional natural polymers-based fibres manufacturing, blends of natural polymers such as cellulose, chitin and silk and electrospinning natural polymers like alginate (in total 50 plus journal publications; 2906 citations; H index 21).  He has secured total research grants equivalent to £2.6 million as PI and Co-I from EPSRC, the British Council, and the Royal Academy of Engineering and from industrial research funding. He is playing a key role as a co-investigator and project manager on EPSRC funded project on “Manufacturing of High-Performance Cellulose Fibres to Replace Glass fibres & Carbon Fibre Precursors” (EP/L017679/1; total value £2.06 million).

The textiles industry and textiles dying process is one of the worst water polluting industries. The environmentally friendly fibre manufacturing and fibre dying process developed in this project will offer excellent solution to significantly reduce the water pollution caused by the textiles and dying process used by textiles and fashion industry. 

The student will get an opportunity to present the research paper at one international conference.

The student will learn the following techniques/skills:

- Natural polymer Textiles manufacturing, fibre spinning process
-Textiles dying using natural dyes
-Mechanical testing and performance testing of natural fibres
-Use of the sustainable textiles for fabric design and fashion design.