Inditex partners with MIT to transform brewery waste into circular textiles and dyes

Madrid – In the journey towards a more sustainable and circular model, the fashion and textile industries have found an unexpected partner: brewery waste. These materials, previously discarded, are now the subject of research by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of La Coruña. The study, funded by Inditex, will assess their potential for transformation into textiles and natural dyes.

According to the University of La Coruña, the cultivation and processing of hops for beer production generates a significant amount of plant waste each year, most of which has previously been unusable. This research project, funded by Inditex, will focus on these surplus materials. Its primary objective is to determine whether these by-products and waste can be transformed into high-value raw materials for manufacturing textile fibres and/or natural dyes.

Supporting this research project, titled “Circular Innovation: Hop-Derived Fibers and Eco-Dyes for Sustainable Textiles”, is a team of researchers from the Centre for Information and Communication Technologies Research (CITIC) at the University of La Coruña and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The Galician companies Corporación Hijos de Rivera and Inditex are also involved. Corporación Hijos de Rivera, the brewing company that owns the Estrella Galicia brand, will provide access to the raw material for the research and assist in validating its development stages. Inditex is funding the project through the MIT.Spain Inditex Circularity Seed Fund programme. It will also participate in the industrial evaluation of the new materials and dyes developed and analyse their potential application as raw materials in the textile and fashion industries.

“Under the title of ‘Circular Innovation: Hop-Derived Fibers and Eco-Dyes for Sustainable Textiles’, the project will explore new ways to add value to waste generated by the brewing industry by developing sustainable textile materials from hop leaves and stems,” stated the University of La Coruña in a press release. These potential new circular raw materials would help to “advance the principles of the circular economy and the decarbonisation of the textile sector”.

From study to prototype manufacturing

This research project is the latest initiative from the “MIT-Spain Inditex Circularity Seed Fund”, an international academic research funding programme financed by Inditex and promoted jointly with MIT as part of its “MIT Global Seed Funds” (MISTI) initiative. MISTI is an international cooperation tool that allows the US academic institution to maintain various strategic and cooperative agreements in different countries. In Spain, it has enabled the promotion of a series of research projects with Spanish universities and research centres since 2017. These projects are specifically aimed at accelerating the development of innovative solutions in the circular economy and sustainability applied to the textile sector.

The research project will be led by a team including researcher Emery Brown from MIT, who was recently awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of La Coruña, and researchers Salvador Naya, Javier Tarrío Saavedra and Erika Francesch Domenech from CITIC at the University of La Coruña. On Thursday, July 23, the researchers held a working meeting at the centre to plan the initial phases of this research. The first stage will focus on analysing the potential of hops as a raw material for the textile sector, both for its fibres in textile production and for obtaining natural dyes. This initial task will be followed by the development of experimental prototypes and finally, their evaluation and analysis to determine their potential industrial-scale viability.

“The project combines complementary capabilities from both academic and business fields,” noted the University of La Coruña. From this joint effort, “the initiative aims to generate interdisciplinary knowledge in areas such as biomaterials, applied statistics and sustainable materials, while promoting new strategies for the valorisation of agricultural waste.” From an environmental perspective, “the project will contribute to reducing resource waste and promoting more sustainable production models, while also creating new economic opportunities for the rural environment.” To achieve these goals, they added that “the research team will identify compounds with potential for textile applications, develop experimental prototypes and evaluate their performance and environmental impact compared to conventional materials, in order to analyse their technical and industrial viability.”