Biodegradable Synthetic Polymers in Textiles – What Lies Beyond PLA and Medical Applications? A Review.

Biodegradable polymers are currently discussed for applications in different fields and are becoming of increasing interest in textile research. While a plethora of work has been done for PLA in medical textiles, other biodegradable polymers and their textile application fields are studied less often, presumably due to higher costs and fewer market opportunities. However, some are emerging from research to pilot scale, and are already utilized commercially in packaging and other sectors but not, unfortunately, in textiles. The commercialisation of such polymers is fuelled by improved biotechnological production processes, show¬ing that textile applications are increasingly conceivable for the future. Additionally, commonly accepted definitions for biodegradability are probably misleading, if they are used to estimate the environmental burden of waste management or recycling of such materials. In this review, the current state of research in the field of biodegradable polymers for the application in textile materials is presented to identify emerging developments for new textile applications. It was clearly seen that PLA is most dominant in that field, while others facilitate new options in the future. The production costs of raw materials and the current patent situation are also evaluated. A special focus is placed on fibre raw materials, coatings, and additives for clothing and technical textiles. Fibre-reinforced composites are excluded, since polymers applied for the matrix component require very different properties compared to the textile materials. This represents a topic to be discussed separately. As a result, these new biodegradable polymers might serve as interesting coating materials for textiles that seem to sneak on to the textile market, as the patent search for such coating formulations suggests. Moreover, new biodegradable fibrous materials for clothing applications can be suggested, but some material properties must be addressed to render them processable on common textile machines.