Researchers at TU Wien, a research institute and SCIRT partner, have been working on patent pending technology that allows to remove elastane from textile blends by a simple and easy procedure. The remaining other fibers are unaffected and can be directly fed into a fiber spinning process. The process has been proven to be successful in deriving pure PET from PET/EL and pure PA from PA/EL mixtures. There is of course no principal limitation to apply the invention to other textile blends, even to the separation of EL from blends with cellulosic fibers. In contrast to the state of the art, they use a formulation that is not REACH listed, can be recovered within the process and also offers the advantage that the dissolved EL remains chemically unchanged. Hence, it allows to use the dissolved EL in fiber spinning.
