{"id":31,"date":"2015-10-06T13:45:37","date_gmt":"2015-10-06T13:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/faculty.cnr.ncsu.edu\/ronaldsgonzalez\/?page_id=31"},"modified":"2026-04-20T20:39:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T20:39:00","slug":"presentations-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/faculty.cnr.ncsu.edu\/ronaldsgonzalez\/presentations-2\/","title":{"rendered":"ConEcSus Bioeconomy"},"content":{"rendered":"
January 2021<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Cotton Incorporated and NCSU Collaborate to Demonstrate Pilot-scale Process to Upcycle Textile Wastes.<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

By Ramon Vera<\/p>\n

Textile waste generation is expected to be 250 million tons per year across the globe by 20301<\/sup>. Each year, the average American disposes of\u00a0nearly 70 pounds<\/a>\u00a0of used clothes, representing more than 17 million tons across the US2<\/sup>. To give some context, this quantity equals ca 11.3 million sedan cars by weight. Current data indicates that 85% of disposed clothes will end up in landfills where they decompose, release greenhouse gases (e.g., CO2<\/sub> and Methane), and leach dyes into the ground and water supplies2<\/sup>. Greenhouse gases emission are reported to be 1.5 Kg CO2<\/sub> eq per Kg of textile wastes3<\/sup>, which for the US the total value would be a remarkable 25.5 billion Kg of CO2<\/sub> eq per year.<\/p>\n

Over the last few years, Dr. Hasan Jameel and Dr. Ronalds Gonzalez and a team of researchers in the\u00a0Department of Forest Biomaterials<\/a> at NCSU have been collaborating with Dr. Matt Farrell and Mary Ankeny from Cotton Incorporated<\/a>, a not-for-profit company and research organization. To solve this environmental issue, the upcycling of textile wastes to produce value-added chemicals has been proposed considering that cotton represents 40% of textile production4<\/sup>. Through enzymatic hydrolysis, cotton, being essentially pure cellulose, can be converted into glucose, a simple sugar but an essential raw material to manufacture value-added chemicals worth thousands of US dollars per ton (e.g., succinic acid, lactic acid, etc.)<\/p>\n

As a result, Cotton Incorporated and NCSU have developed a sustainable process where a mechanical pretreatment with a low-to-free chemical demand is applied prior to the enzymatic hydrolysis process to achieve cotton conversion yields higher than 95%. Additionally, sustainable bleaching pretreatments for dyed textiles have been established with low-chemical use to deal with dyes that inhibit the textile conversion process but, even worse, are extremely pollutant to the environment5<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

\"RamonThese processes represent an important step in the way to deal with the complexity that textile wastes have, such as the blending of natural (e.g., cotton) and synthetic fibers (e.g., polyester, nylon, rayon, etc.). For example, the efficient conversion of cotton from textiles would allow the separation and recycling of other synthetic and non-biodegradable fibers representing 60% of the whole textile production6,7<\/sup>.\u00a0 \u00a0Hence, this fact makes textile wastes available for further utilization and a great business opportunity for an emerging supply industry within the circular economy and thus reduces greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

The team will set up a pilot-scale demonstration in 2022 to adapt these novel processes in the commercial realm. Farrell added, \u201cwe are very excited to see this concept go from a few grams in the lab to tens of pounds in the pilot-scale demonstration. Equally exciting is the minimal chemical burden imposed by this process and the remarkable hydrolysis conversion efficiencies that have been obtained. This research unequivocally demonstrates that cotton textiles can be taken from trash and turned into natural chemical building blocks, all at an economically competitive price point.\u201d\u00a0 In addition to Jameel and Gonzalez, the NC State research team also includes Ramon Vera<\/u> (picture left), a doctoral research assistant, and John Bedard, an undergraduate student, both from the Department of Forest Biomaterials, College of Natural Resources at NC State University.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 References<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Rani, H. & Saha, G. Organizations and standards related to textile and fashion waste management and sustainability<\/em>. Waste Management in the Fashion and Textile Industries<\/em> (Elsevier Ltd., 2021). doi:10.1016\/b978-0-12-818758-6.00009-0.<\/li>\n
  2. US EPA. Textiles: Material-Specific Data. Facts and Figures about Materials, Waste and Recycling<\/em> (2020).<\/li>\n
  3. Payet, J. Assessment of carbon footprint for the textile sector in France. Sustain.<\/em> 13<\/strong>, 1\u201323 (2021).<\/li>\n
  4. Esteve-Turrillas, F. A. & de la Guardia, M. Environmental impact of Recover cotton in textile industry. Resour. Conserv. Recycl.<\/em> 116<\/strong>, 107\u2013115 (2017).<\/li>\n
  5. Wani, K. A., Nirmala\u0304 Kuma\u0304ri\u0304 & IGI Global. Impact of textile dyes on public health and the environment<\/em>.<\/li>\n
  6. Jia, F., Yin, S., Chen, L. & Chen, X. The circular economy in the textile and apparel industry: A systematic literature review. J. Clean. Prod.<\/em> 259<\/strong>, 120728 (2020).<\/li>\n
  7. Quartinello, F. et al.<\/em> Highly selective enzymatic recovery of building blocks from wool-cotton-polyester textile waste blends. Polymers (Basel).<\/em> 10<\/strong>, (2018).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    May 2020<\/strong><\/h5>\n

    A Flexible & Immune Supply Chain for the Hygiene Tissue Industry<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

    By Ronalds W. Gonzalez and Franklin Zambrano<\/p>\n

    This blog post reflects my recent conversations with recycled fiber supply chain operators in the hygiene tissue industry in Europe, North America, and LatAm regions.<\/p>\n

    My colleague Dr. Robert Handfield recently introduced the term \u201csupply chain immunity\u201d as an alternative to resilient supply chains. Resilient supply chains mean \u201cminimizing damage and the time taken to return to a normal state of operations\u201d [1]. In some specific contexts, resilient supply chains might imply the loss of lives in the interim that the supply of goods and services is re-established. In other less dramatic circumstances, resilient supply chains can also mean a shortage of essential products for daily life, and might, very likely, imply negative effects to a company\u2019s P&L as it adapts to the limited sourcing alternatives. On the other hand, immune supply chains describe the idea of a supply chain that can resist significant events (e.g., pandemics, earthquakes, financial crises) and still serve our production systems.<\/p>\n

    Now, in the framework of the hygiene tissue industry, there is an additional feature to an immune supply chain that needs to be present: flexibility. I invite you to think about flexible and immune supply chains and, more specifically, flexible sourcing programs. Let\u2019s use fibers as the subject to discuss and illustrate these concepts:
    \nCOVID-19 pandemic has caused significant disruptions to global and local supply chains. In particular to the hygiene tissue industry, we have previously discussed (March 2020) that the production of hygiene tissue has not been affected at all in North America, and that the shortage of tissue paper on the shelves is the result of consumer nervousness. Basically, consumers are buying more than they need in an industry with very lean supply. By the end of May 2020, we witnessed how product availability in stores increased (consumers have stopped buying more than they need).<\/p>\n

    Yet the pandemic is affecting the availability of specific fiber grades used in the manufacturing of hygiene tissue with major effects observed for recycled fibers. Fiber sourcing managers are seeing temporary shortages and price increases for recycled fibers in Europe, LatAm, and to a less extend in NA. Some of the bottlenecks in the supply of recycled fibers are caused by issues in the collection, attributable to shifts in purchasing channels from stores to e-retailers (as a consequence of current state-of-affairs), in addition to reduced curbside collection, which had been previously impacted by China\u2019s trade policy.<\/p>\n

    The impossibility to secure steady volumes of specific recycled fiber grades bring up the need to create flexible fiber sourcing strategies. Flexible sourcing programs will help companies to reduce not only the impact of temporary market dynamics effects but also the likelihood of disruption in production systems when natural disasters occur.<\/p>\n

    Such flexible sourcing programs can be established by creating different pulp formulas (various types of fibers at different ratios and refining levels), which have been carefully combined to attain well-defined metrics such as product performance (i.e., softness, absorbency, strength), manufacturing costs and sustainability. Adoption of flexible sourcing programs will enable sourcing and production managers to proactively switch the type of fibers used to manufacture their products when foreseen market conditions are not favorable.<\/p>\n

    The Tissue Pack Innovation Lab (www.go.ncsu.edu\/tissue) at NC State University has been working to create a multidimensional database that connects different types of commercially used, under-used, and alternative fibers with product performance [2]\u2013[5]. The development of such programs needs to consider facilities configuration and capacities while identifying strategic opportunities for cost reduction. Building a flexible sourcing program in partnership with NC State University, which might be useful for the next ten years might cost ~USD 150k, yet it will help manufacturers to avoid losing millions of dollars per year.<\/p>\n

    Immune and flexible sourcing programs will be of great need to face the increasing impact of global megatrends on the hygiene tissue industry [2]\u2013[3], as well as the occurrence of future natural disasters. If you do nothing, you are set to lose tens of millions of dollars every year in and year out.<\/p>\n

    References<\/strong>
    \n[1] R. Handfield, \u201cSupply chains need to develop immunity to natural disasters,\u201d London School of Economics Business Review, 2020. .
    \n[2] N. Hensley et al., \u201cIs Sustainability Shaping the Hygiene Tissue Industry?,\u201d PaperFIRST, 2020.
    \n[3] R. Gonzalez et al., \u201cMapping Drivers for Value in The Tissue & Towel Industry,\u201d Tissue Day Symposium 2018. Raleigh, 2018.
    \n[4] Y. Wang et al., \u201cRelationship between human perception of softness and instrument measurements,\u201d BioResources, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 780\u2013795, 2019, doi: 10.15376\/biores.14.1.780-795.
    \n[5] T. De Assis et al., \u201cPerformance and Sustainability vs. the Shelf Price of Tissue Paper Kitchen Towels,\u201d Bio Resour., vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 6868\u20136892, 2018.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    March 2020<\/strong><\/h5>\n

    Hygiene Tissue Shortage<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

    By Ronalds Gonzalez<\/p>\n

    I have been asked about the lack of bath tissue paper in the stores, this is what I’m seeing in the industry:<\/p>\n

    1. More than 98% of tissue products are manufactured in the U.S.
    \n2. Production is located in remote areas with a low population density
    \n3. Fibers are produced in the U.S. with exception to Eucalyptus, which is produced in Brazil, and the import of Eucalyptus from Brazil is “business as usual”. Also, the recycled fiber is collected in the U.S.
    \n4. The production and supply chain of hygiene tissue paper is robust with very low risk to be disrupted
    \n5. Why are there few inventories in the store? People are buying more than they need.
    \n6. Tissue market in normal conditions is very competitive and saturated.
    \n7. There are two big segments, consumer tissue (found in groceries) and professional hygiene (found in offices). People are staying home; then there is a slight increase in demand for the consumer tissue segment and a reduction in professional hygiene segments. The latter are positioning production now in consumer tissue.
    \n8. ALL tissue manufacturing facilities in the U.S. are fully operational (at full capacity)
    \n9. In summary, consumers are experiencing nervousness, and they are buying more than they should, depleting inventories of an industry that is very lean.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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