Background

Seat covers and other textile cabin components are currently mostly recycled for energy after use. For these safety-critical, high-performance textiles, there is currently no industrially validated closed-loop process that actually recycles them into new materials for the aviation industry after they are removed.

Project Objectives

The central goal of the Textile Air Loop project is to develop and validate a scalable circular economy concept for aircraft seat textiles. To this end, the project team is examining existing seat textile composites with regard to their recyclability and separability and is developing suitable collection, sorting, and processing methods. The recycled fibers will be used to create and validate a textile component—such as a wool nonwoven—for use in the cabin environment.

Approach

To this end, the project team is overseeing the entire process—from the collection of used seat covers through fiber processing and the development of recycled materials to their reintegration into new seat textiles. A key focus is on the scientific evaluation of the developed textile component: To this end, the team selects suitable testing and evaluation methods for recycled aviation textiles, adapts them as needed, and examines the materials mechanically, chemically, physically, and—in particular—from a fire safety perspective. In addition, it evaluates the environmental impact of the recycling solution as part of a life-cycle analysis. In the future, digital material passports are intended to enable transparent documentation of material composition, recycling content, carbon footprint, and traceability.