FungalFibers – Leggings at Techtextil 2026 in Frankfurt, Germany

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Against a backdrop of limited resources such as oil, water and arable land, as well as increasing environmental degradation and potential for conflict, there is significant social and commercial interest in providing competitive, socially and environmentally sustainable alternative raw materials for the textile industry. The aim of this project is to develop a completely new process chain for the production of bio-based, vegan textiles from chitosan fibres (filament and staple fibre yarns).

Chitosan is chemically closely related to chitin, the second most abundant substance in nature after cellulose. It occurs naturally in a variety of sources: in insects, crab and shellfish shells, and as a structural component of the cell walls of all fungi. Chitin can therefore be obtained from by-products of crab meat production, insect protein or fungal biomass waste from industrial processes. Chitosan, in turn, can be easily produced from chitin through deacetylation.
Contact: Leonie.Beek@ita.rwth-aachen.de.

ITA Group will be presenting the latest developments in sustainable textile products and production processes at Techtextil 2026, taking place from 21 to 24 April 2026 in Frankfurt am Main.

The exhibits from ITA Augsburg gGmbH and ITA Technologietransfer GmbH will be on display at the Elmatex joint stand in Hall 12.0, Booth D05.

ITA Group will showcase various approaches to mechanical and thermo-mechanical recycling, addressing potential applications in the textile, materials and automotive industries.

ITA Augsburg gGmbH, which specialises in mechanical textile recycling, will present innovations in the fields of composites, mechanical textile recycling and artificial intelligence in production.
These include sound and thermal insulation panels from the “IsoTex” project, a towel from the “EcoYarn” recycling project, and the “ColoSens” demonstrator, an AI-based solution for automated colour recognition of fibres in the recycling process.

ITA Technologietransfer GmbH demonstrates thermo-mechanical recycling using numerous examples within the Fabric2Fabric cycle. Using a 3D-printed car seat demonstrator as an example, the recyclable filament yarns are incorporated into a seat cover.

In addition, ITA Technologietransfer GmbH is showcasing its patented ‘Textile Anchor’ concept, an innovative anchoring system designed to protect and secure structures in geotechnical environments such as mountains, in the ground and underwater, as well as for use in building construction. The textile anchor offers an ultra-lightweight solution with high flexibility and optimal adaptability, and is manufactured from extremely durable or biodegradable and sustainable textiles.

At ITA Group’s ‘shared booth’, ITA Technologietransfer GmbH will be providing information on innovations from various industrial partners:

- technofibres s.a. from Luxembourg offers solution-dyed PET and sustainable trPET filament yarns with a wide range of matting levels, filament cross-sections and packaging options for bespoke solutions, even in the smallest batch sizes, making it unique in Europe.

- Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd. from Japan offers Xarec™, a syndiotactic polystyrene (SPS) fibre for use in fabrics and nonwovens. The advantages of this semi-crystalline high-performance material, which acquires its syndiotactic structure through the polymerisation of polystyrene and a metallocene catalyst, are demonstrated in nonwoven samples for the filtration sector in comparison with conventional materials.

- The Swedish company Luma Wire Tech AB is an innovative specialist in fine wires, with expertise in advanced plating. Each wire, ranging from 4 to 300 microns and produced from tungsten, molybdenum, or other advanced materials, is tailored to meet each customer’s specific needs— available either uncoated or with high-performance coatings of gold, silver, palladium, or other.

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