New Fabric Test Material Could Help Strengthen Domestic Supply Chain for Textiles and Clothing

A new NIST research-grade test material is part of an effort to help the textile industry better identify and sort textiles and fabrics. 

Though more than half of all clothing and other textiles are suitable for recycling, most of them aren’t repurposed. The high volume of donated clothing and the slow, labor-intensive process of manually sorting fabrics means they aren’t always reintroduced into the domestic supply chain to make new products.

To increase the speed and efficiency of the sorting process, the textile industry is turning to artificial intelligence (AI) tools. But the industry needs standards to better identify the fibers in clothing and textiles so they can be accurately sorted.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a set of textile materials that the research community can use to improve methods for identifying the fibers in textiles. These materials will help ensure that textiles are efficiently sorted, increasing recycling and repurposing while reducing waste and disposal costs.

“This textile material will help validate sorting methods and make textile sorters’ measurements comparable from one center to another,” said NIST materials research engineer Amanda Forster. “This lays the foundation for expanding supply chains and increasing the recovery of the economic value from textiles and clothing in the U.S.”