The textile industry, one of the fastest growing sectors in recent years, is also among the most environmentally polluting—second only to the petroleum industry. To reduce its environmental impact, recycling garments is essential to decrease water use, resource consumption, and land demand for raw materials. This review summarizes techniques for regenerating cellulose from waste garments, covering dissolution, regeneration, and fiber production through various spinning methods studied over the past 25 years. It presents findings on cellulose dissolution processes, including derivatizing and non-derivatizing methods, along with their advantages and disadvantages. While industrial processes like lyocell and viscose are widely applied, they rely on polluting chemicals. The review also highlights the use of ionic liquids as effective, less harmful, non-derivatizing solvents. Lastly, the most commonly used spinning methods—wet, melt, dry, and electrospinning—are discussed, along with the physical properties of the fibers obtained through each technique.
Sas et al. (Fri,) studied this question.