FungalFibers – Leggings at Techtextil 2026 in Frankfurt, Germany

At Techtextil and Texprocess 2026 ITA Aachen presented solutions to specific contemporary challenges.

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.