UPM, Vaude advance bio-based polyester for textiles

Helsinki – UPM Biochemicals and outdoor apparel manufacturer Vaude have joined forces to produce bio-based polyester textile and footwear materials.

The partners aim to produce the "first ever” fleece jacket made from polyester materials that contain 30% bio-monoethylene glycol (bioMEG).

The wood-derived feedstock is to replace traditional fossil-based monoethylene glycol (MEG) in the production of the polymer.

To manufacture the polyester, UPM’s BioPura-branded BioMEG is used as a drop-in replacement to produce materials “identical to currently used MEG on a molecular basis”.

For the production of the polyester, Indorama Ventures will polymerise and spin the polyester yarn at its site in Guben,Germany.

Pontetorto, a textile manufacturer in Prato, Italy, will then process this yarn into a bio-based polyester fabric, which Vaude will use to produce final garments.

The bio-polyesters could eventually also find use in tire-reinforcement fabric, a UPM spokeswoman confirmed in a written statement to ERJ.

"Yes, it could indeed also work in a tire reinforcement fabric. In this fabric, the bio-content would be then approx. 30%," she stated.

UPM, furthermore, aims to use the bio-MEG in polyurethane (PU) materials.

In a partnership agreed last year with South Korea’s Dongsung Chemical, UPM is working to develop bio-based PU raw materials, initially for footwear applications.

Meanwhile, UPM is set to commission a €750-million biorefinery, designed to transform wood-derived biomass into a range of chemicals and materials.

The 220 kilotonne-per-annum facility in Leuna, Germany was initially due for start-up at the end of 2022, with ramp-up scheduled for 2023.

In a recent announcement, UPM said that the plant was now due to come on-line by the end of this year.