Biopolymers for Sustainable Textiles: Environmental Perspectives and Multisectoral Impact

Biopolymers are the need of society for sustainable growth. Biopolymers have potential to reduce the volume of plastics waste or synthetic fibres generated by the textile industrial sector due to their biodegradability, non-toxicity, biocompatibility, and fast degradability. This is one of the prime keys to resolve environmental damage caused by petroleum-based materials. Biopolymers are the better alternatives for synthetic materials made from petroleum, which are non-biodegradable and will take thousands of years to break down. The concept of Biopolymers is not new to this era, it has been used since the ancient times but moderation in the composition to make it worth for the variety of applications has begun in 2000’s. Biopolymers have been used in textile industry from the last few decades which of course helps to control the green-house gas emission in comparison to synthetic fibres but still there are many challenges in relation with these materials. Biopolymers have less mechanical strength & durability, needs more processing steps, more expensive etc. In other words, we can say biopolymers proposes lower end-use characteristics. As a result, lots of efforts are being made to enhance its mechanical properties, crystallization kinetics, thermal resistance, barrier qualities, improving the hydrophobicity, minimizing costs etc. Many considerable research is being carried out in order to cope up with the challenges that limit the functionalities and applicability of biopolymers. Nevertheless, more research is still needed to address the challenges related to biopolymers for expanding the practicability as a potential material for textile industry.