Some 70 million tonnes of fibres are traded worldwide every year. Man-made fibres manufactured from products of petroleum or natural gas account for almost two-thirds of this total. The most commonly used natural fibres are wool and cotton, but they have lost ground against synthetic fibres.

Despite their environmental friendliness, fibres made of biopolymers from plant or animal origin remain very much a niche product. At the end of the 19th century, there were already attempts to refine proteins into textiles. For example, a patent for textiles made of gelatine was filed in 1894. After the Second World War, however, the emerging synthetic fibres drove biological protein fibres swiftly and thoroughly from the market.

Over the past few years, there has been increased demand for natural fibres produced from renewable resources using environmentally friendly methods. Wool fibre in particular has experienced a renaissance in performance sportswear made of merino wool. And a few years ago, a young entrepreneur in Germany started making high-quality textiles from the milk protein casein.

New use for waste product

Now Philipp Stössel, a 28-year-old PhD student in Professor Wendelin Stark’s Functional Materials Laboratory (FML), is presenting a new method for obtaining high-quality fibres from gelatine. The method was developed in cooperation with the Advanced Fibers Laboratory at Empa St. Gallen. Stössel was able to spin the fibres into a yarn from which textiles can be manufactured.

Gelatine consists chiefly of collagen, a main component of skin, bone and tendons. Large quantities of collagen are found in slaughterhouse waste and can be easily made into gelatine. For these reasons, Stark and Stössel decided to use this biomaterial for their experiments.