As the textile industry faces mounting pressure to reduce waste and improve circularity, attention is increasingly turning towards the technologies that can transform discarded textiles into valuable new materials. At the AMI Compounding & Recycling Expo Europe, Cecília Ribeiro of CeNTI – Centre for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials will explore how scaling up pre-treatment technologies is helping make textile recycling a commercial reality in her presentation, Scale-up of Pre-treatment and Recycling Routes for Textile Waste.

Ribeiro holds an MSc in Chemical Engineering with a specialisation in environmental technologies and has been working in research and development at CeNTI since 2023. Her work focuses largely on sustainability and circular economy projects, helping to develop innovative solutions that support industry in meeting the ambitions of the European Green Deal.

CeNTI works across sustainability and bioeconomy, energy and decarbonisation, and the digital transformation of materials and processes, supporting industrial partners in adopting more competitive and sustainable approaches to the global market.

At the heart of Ribeiro's presentation is an often-overlooked stage of the recycling process.

"The pre-treatment isn't a minor step before recycling. It's the step that determines whether recycling actually works," she explains.

According to Ribeiro, the complexity of real-world textile waste presents one of the biggest challenges for recycling technologies. Fibre blends, dyes and functional finishes can all significantly affect the success of a recycling process.

"The complexity of real textile waste, like fibre blends, dyes and functional finishes, is what makes or breaks a chemical recycling process."

While considerable progress has been made at laboratory scale, the industry's next challenge is demonstrating that these solutions can perform reliably in conditions that more closely resemble commercial operations.

"What I want attendees to walk away with is the understanding that we've taken that lab-scale knowledge and tested it where it actually matters: at semi-industrial scale, under conditions much closer to what a real recycling operation would face."

Her work demonstrates the feasibility of textile chemical recycling on a pilot-scale unit, separating polyester from cellulose and recovering cellulosic material that can be spun into new fibres.

"This isn't just a proof of concept anymore, it's a demonstrated, scalable pathway toward closing the loop on textile waste."

The timing of the discussion is particularly significant. Across Europe, regulatory and market pressures are accelerating the need for effective textile recycling infrastructure.

"The EU's mandatory separate collection of textile waste took effect in 2025 and Extended Producer Responsibility schemes are being rolled out across member states," says Ribeiro. "Suddenly there's a huge volume of post-consumer textile waste that needs somewhere to go, and landfill or incineration are no longer acceptable defaults."

The challenge is that much of this waste consists of complex blended materials that have historically been difficult to recycle. While chemical recycling technologies have advanced significantly, scaling those processes remains a major hurdle for the industry.

"We're not proposing a new lab-scale concept. We're testing whether pre-treatment strategies that already work in the lab hold up at semi-industrial scale, with the robustness and reproducibility that industry actually needs."

During the session, attendees will gain insight into the key challenges associated with recycling textile waste and the practical lessons learned through the be@t project as technologies move from the laboratory into larger-scale operations.

Particular attention will be given to process robustness, reproducibility and the quality of recovered materials, all crucial factors for creating commercially viable recycling systems.

One of the most compelling aspects of the presentation will be the transformation of materials that many would consider unrecyclable.

"One of the most surprising aspects we'll discuss is how textile waste that appears unrecyclable due to complex fibre blends, dyes and chemical finishes can be transformed into high-quality cellulosic material capable of being spun into new fibres."

The session is expected to be especially relevant for those working directly in textile recycling and material recovery. However, Ribeiro believes it will also resonate with organisations further along the value chain.

"It'll also be relevant to people further along the value chain, like spinners, yarn producers and brands looking to source recycled cellulosic fibre, because we show that the recovered material retains enough quality to be respun."

Ultimately, Ribeiro hopes attendees rethink how they view scale-up activities.

"I hope attendees stop treating scale-up as a formality and start seeing it as where the real challenges lie."

She also wants delegates to recognise that recycled cellulosic fibres are no longer a distant ambition.

"I hope they leave with more confidence that recycled cellulosic fibre isn't a future promise, but something we're already demonstrating works at semi-industrial scale."

Her passion for the topic stems from her involvement in sustainability-focused research projects and a growing understanding of the technical and environmental barriers that currently limit textile recycling.

"The focus on this topic comes from my involvement in research projects related to sustainable materials and waste valorisation, which enabled me to gain a deeper understanding of the technical and environmental barriers that limit textile recycling."

Beyond her own presentation, Ribeiro is eager to learn about developments across the wider recycling industry and connect with professionals from different sectors.

"I'm particularly excited to learn about new approaches to polymer recycling," she says. "Cross-sector conversations tend to surface unexpected solutions, and someone working on polymer additive interference in plastics recycling might have a perspective on dye or finish removal that we haven't considered in textiles."

For anyone interested in circular economy solutions, textile recycling technologies or the practical realities of scaling innovative processes, Ribeiro's session promises valuable insight into one of the industry's most pressing challenges.

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