Cellulose Renaissance | Bio Textile Recycling

Our Technology

What is Cellulose Renaissance?

Cellulose Renaissance is a bold new approach, designed in the UK to tackle material waste. At its core, it has pioneered a groundbreaking biobased process that leverages enzyme and fermentation to recycle discarded textiles into high-quality virgin materials, offering a scalable solution for textile-to-textile recycling.

Cellulose Renaissance is about more than just a technology, it’s about pioneering a mindset shift to reimagine how we treat textile waste, how we design for longevity, and how we value the materials all around us.

Inspired by the spirit of renewal or renaissance in French, we are using Science to provide a biobased solution for re-purposing textiles waste, reducing waste to landfill and providing more sustainable materials for clothes production

The Problem

Every year, there are over 100 billion garments produced, this results in 92 million tonnes of textile waste (or over a rubbish-truck’s worth every single second) (Global Fashion Agenda)

An overwhelming majority of waste ends up buried or burned rather than being circulated (Earth.Org). About 57% ends up in landfill after being thrown away, 25% are burned and approximately 10% are recycled (Business Waste). Less than 1% are recycled back into textiles products (Wrap)

$An image showing a pie chart that highlights the amount of waste\$ A pile of wasted clothes

So why hasn’t anyone solved the issue of waste textiles? Current technologies can’t tackle mixes and blends of natural and synthetic fibres, and sorting can be expensive, timely and challenging due to many mixed fibre materials. (BBC)

How do we solve this problem?

The most sustainable clothes are the ones already in your wardrobe or someone else’s. That’s why we always say: buy less, and choose second-hand whenever you can.

However, the fashion industry won’t change overnight, and millions of garments still end up as waste. That’s where we come in.

At Cellulose Renaissance, we use nature-inspired science to extract valuable fibres from discarded clothing and transform them into high-quality, bio-based materials. By keeping resources in use and out of landfill, we’re helping to close the loop, one fibre at a time.

What does the process look like?

An image of the process involved when recycling and breaking down plant based material

Unsorted textiles are fed into the process

Anything not plant-based gets left behind

The plant-based material is produced and can be spun into yarn to make fresh textiles

What does 'Plant-Based' mean?

Plant-based material (or cellulose) originally comes from plants,Plant based fibres are cotton, viscose, tencel, lyocell, linen and hemp. They are all made up of a polymer called cellulose.

What is left behind?

Dyes, and textile fibres made from proteins such as Silk and Wool, as well as synthetic fibres: Polyester, nylon and elastane.

Why does your process only digest plant-based materials?

Scientifically, all textile fibres are made of polymers or long chain of building blocks. The building blocks of cellulose are glucose molecules, a simple sugar. Protein and synthetics fibres are polymers made of very different building blocks. Our process is specifically designed to break down plant-based cellulose.

Process FAQs

How does our technology work?

Images are for illustrative effects only and are not taken from our process

An image showing fibres and enzymes breaking material down

A chemistry beaker showing the fermentation process

An image showing how the polymer can be spun into high-quality yarns

Unusable textiles are recovered and used directly without sorting or colour removal before it goes to landfill

Specific enzymes digest the plant-based fibres like cotton or viscose into simple sugars, the building blocks of cellulose

We feed these sugars to our bacteria (this is when the magic happens!) and they produce new cellulose

We clean the bacterial cellulose produced for further application

Our biomaterial can be spun into new high-quality yarns that can be used to make clothes!

Unusable textiles are recovered and used directly without sorting or colour removal before they go to landfill

Speciic enzymes digest the plant-based fibres like cotton or viscose into simple sugars; the building blocks of cellulose

We feed these sugars to our bacteria (this is when the magic happens!) and they produce new cellulose

We clean the bacterial cellulose produced for further application

Our biomaterial can be spun into new high-quality yarns that can be used to make clothes!

Why is our technology unique? What's our USP?

Showing the dye being removed from the clothes

Image shows an example input and output of the process. This process extracts the usable plant-based materials and leaves behind dyes and elastane.

Less Pre-Processing

No need to sort
No need to de-colour
No need to remove seams

We are the only technology that can recycle Viscose and handle Elastane in the input.

Organic Process

Our technology is powered by bio-based process (imagine the way you make kombucha!)

Our Ambition

Produce 1 tonne of closed-loop textile, then go to Commercial Scale.

Currently, 7 million tonnes of viscose are produced worldwide. Our goal is to capture 5% of that market, translating to 350,000 tonnes of sustainable, high-performance fibres.

At Cellulose Renaissance, we aim to transform textile waste into the fibres of tomorrow. However, achieving this vision requires collaboration. We can’t do it alone.

An image showing the different colours of fibre created from the process

We’re actively seeking Strategic Business Partners in the following areas:

Strategic Business Partners in the Fashion & Textile Sectors who can unlock new markets and accelerate our growth

Engineering experts with the know-how to optimise our bio-reactor process and reduce our water and glucose consumption

Specialist recyclers or fellow technology experts that can recycle the non-plant-based byproducts that remain after digestion

Investors that believe in our mission and are willing to provide financial support to help us scale

An industrial pilot-plant partner willing to host and refine our scale-up trials

Interested?
Get in touch to learn more

Revolutionising
Textile Recycling

Our Technology

What is Cellulose Renaissance?

The Problem

How do we solve this problem?

What does the process look like?

What does 'Plant-Based' mean?

What is left behind?

Why does your process only digest plant-based materials?

Process FAQs

How does our technology work?

Why is our technology unique? What's our USP?

Less Pre-Processing

Organic Process

Our Ambition

We’re actively seeking Strategic Business Partners in the following areas:

Get in touch today

RevolutionisingTextile Recycling

Our Technology

What is Cellulose Renaissance?

The Problem

How do we solve this problem?

What does the process look like?

What does 'Plant-Based' mean?

What is left behind?

Why does your process only digest plant-based materials?

Process FAQs

How does our technology work?

Why is our technology unique? What's our USP?

Less Pre-Processing

Organic Process

Our Ambition

We’re actively seeking Strategic Business Partners in the following areas:

Get in touch today

Revolutionising
Textile Recycling