After 10 years in the make, CETI, the European Centre for Innovative Textiles, was finally inaugurated in October 2012. The aim of the research centre is to give the textile industry a platform to research and prototype innovative textiles that can be used in sectors like: Medical, Sport & Leisure, Hygiene, and Protection sectors representing 25% of technical textile manufacturing industry; building and civil engineering that account for 10% of the production; transport making 26% of the market volume (and 15% of the market value) of technical textiles. The centre is based in Lille, northern France, a well-known industrial textile area in Europe, second textile region in France and strongly positioned as a centre for innovative and technical textiles. In fact, France is the second consumer of technical textiles in Europe (14% of EU production) after Germany (55% of production).
From Lille, knowledge about latest development in innovative textiles is spread internationally with Futuro Textiles. This is an exhibition conceived in Lille, and launched in 2006. Since then, it has showcased the latest innovations in textiles applicable to clothing, home textiles and upholstery and many other sectors in several countries including Turkey, Belgium, Italy, Spain, China. Research in technical textiles is therefore CETI’s main focus.
As technical textiles (representing 25% of the world textile production) are products which are used principally for their performance or functional characteristics, rather than for their aesthetics, it is not surprising that in this sector expenditure in Research and Development is higher (8-10% of turnover) than in conventional textiles (3-5% of turnover). Technical textiles generated a global turnover of $133 billion in 2011 and 25 million tonnes in volume. The growth has been high, multiplied by 5 since the 1960s, and, according to CETI, will continue to increase at an average annual rate of 4 to 5 per cent. In particular, it is expected that nano technology and nano fibres market will grow at over 30% yearly from now until 2020 bringing the total market value to $2 billion (it was $140 million in 2010).
Technical textile manufacturers share some of the risks that conventional textile companies have:
- Cotton is the most used fibre among all the natural fibres employed in the production of technical textiles. Producers therefore compete with conventional ones in securing cotton supplies.
- However, more than 90% of all fibres used are man-made, particularly polyester staple and filaments, that are today mostly produced in Asia. It is estimated that in 2015 only 8% of synthetic fibres will be produced in Western Europe and Turkey and 56% will be manufactured in China. The challenge is that Chinese companies will want to secure the majority of the available volumes for themselves rather than exporting them. This will allow them to export fabrics, instead, a higher value product.
It is clear then that European companies will have to compete in the global arena with smart products keeping high-value activities (e.g. research and knowledge creation) in Europe. Considering that the production of technical textiles implies the consumption of large volumes of man-made fibres like polyester, there is a great opportunity there to conceive new fibres and processes that have a double goal: to reduce dependency from the big Asian fibre producers and to fill gaps in the market.
The European Commission is investing resources in this sense. As an example, within the framework of Eco-innovation Projects, they are funding a project led by the Prato based (Italy) textile research institute Next Technology Tecnotessile. The project, called Supertex, is aimed at demonstrating that alternative raw materials such as recycled Polyester (RPET) can be successfully used for the production of environmentally sustainable, high added value technical textile products. Will the outcome of this research generate some learnings also for the fashion industry?
