Researchers eliminate latex from carpet backings

ERJ staff report (DS)

Barcelona, Spain -- A team of scientists has developed a more eco-friendly process for making and then disposing of carpets. The process eliminates latex from the process. Latex contributes up to 60 percent of the weight of a carpet.

The so-called “cradle-to-cradle” model has been central to the work done by the team led by Tzanko Tzanov, a researcher with the Molecular and Industrial Biotechnology Group at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. BarcelonaTech's Terrassa Campus. The outcome is an enzyme-based biological technology that paves the way for three Netherlands companies to manufacture carpets that are much lighter, sustainable, biodegradable, and 100 percent recyclable.

For the last year, Tzanko Tzanov, one of the coordinators of the Molecular and Industrial Biotechnology Group at the UPC's Terrassa Campus, has been working in collaboration with researchers at the University of Graz (Austria) on the project, which is known as Erutan (“nature” backwards). The “back to nature” concept is at the heart of the research project commissioned by the Netherlands companies Bond Textile Research, Best Wool Carpet and James, who asked the team to come up with a technology for manufacturing wool carpets that would close the biological cycle for wool and avoid the use of latex.

To achieve this goal they had to eliminate latex - a material that is both heavy and expensive - from the manufacturing process for wool carpets. Conventional manufacturing of carpets includes a system for binding the material using a layer of latex that impregnates the backing to which fibres are attached. This layer of latex (a very costly material) accounts for 70 percent of a carpet's weight and must be applied by means of high-temperature vulcanisation. Normally when a carpet reaches the end of its useful life it is destroyed by incineration, a process that generates greenhouse gases. Only 20 percent of the product is recycled.

The official global presentation of the carpet manufactured using this technology will take place next year on 5 April at Floriade 2012, the world's premier horticultural exhibition, which is held in the Netherlands.

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Press release from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya