Foil-Backing - Innovative film backing for textile, recyclable mono-material floor coverings based on recycled polyamides

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07.04.2025 | Awards
The 29ᵗʰ national SAMPE Symposium highlighted composite technologies for a sustainable future

Around 80 experts from science and industry came together in the university’s main building to discuss current developments in the field of composite materials. The event was organized by RWTH Aachen University in cooperation with SAMPE

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Development of recyclable mono-material floor coverings through the recycling of polyamide

The aim of the project is to develop a recyclable textile floor covering made of polyamide.

Textile floor coverings (TB) consist not only of visible polyamide fibres, but also of additional layers of various polymers, rubbers and fillers. As the separation of these layers is possible only to a limited extend mechanical recycling of TB is currently not economical.

Foil-Backing 1 eng — Fig. 1: Structure of a TB (left) and production of a TB by hermobonding (right)

Foil-Backing 2 eng — Fig. 2: Twin-screw extruder for compounding and production of recycled PA pellets from end-of-life floor coveringsRecycling-PA-Granulat aus Alt-TBn

Foil-Backing 3 eng — Fig. 3: Perforated plate with strainer for surface filtration

The project “Innovative film backing for textile, recyclable mono-material floor coverings based on recycled polyamides”, which was launched in April 2023, aims to develop a textile floor covering made of polyamide that can be recycled. The first step is to develop an extrusion process for the mechanical recycling of used polyamide with a high proportion of impurities (latex, CaCO₃, etc.) to produce a high-quality polyamide flat film (Fig. 2).

By means of optimised surface filtration, 90-99% by weight of the impurities are to be removed from the recyclate (Fig. 3). The resulting granulate is then used to produce a flat film, which is applied to the back of a tufted TB made of recycled PA using the innovative thermobonding process, thus fixing the visible PA fibres to the floor covering (Fig. 1). Due to a significant reduction in energy requirements compared to latex bonding, thermobonding represents an economically and ecologically valuable alternative to previously used backing coatings and enables the production of textile floor coverings with the highest possible varietal purity. Thus, the approved project provides recyclable TB made of recycled material, which are of highest interest for material recycling after their service life due to the high PA content and can serve as raw material for new PA fibres.

Project data and funding

We would like to thank the AiF for funding the IGF project (research project 22910N) and the project partners for their cooperation.
Project duration: 01.04.2023 – 31.03.2025