Bäumlin & Ernst AG wins Innovation Award at Techtextil

(CONNECT) Bäumlin & Ernst AG (beag) from Wattwil in the Swiss canton of St.Gallen has won an Innovation Award at the Techtextil trade fair, which came to a close on April 24 in Frankfurt. The yarn manufacturer was presented with this accolade in recognition of its EC0Tex process in the New Concept category, as detailed in a statement. The process was developed in collaboration with Dirk Hegemann’s team at the Advanced Fibers laboratory of the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) in St. Gallen, as part of the Subitex joint project between Empa and the industry association Swiss Textiles. The rope manufacturer Seilfabrik Ullmann AG, which is also based in St. Gallen, and Lothos from Lampenberg in the canton of Basel-Landschaft, are also involved in the project.

The EC0Tex process uses dry plasma, a reactive gas, to coat each individual filament of a yarn with an ultra-thin layer of organosilicon. With this new method, the need to finish yarns with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), commonly referred to as “forever chemicals” and recognized as a health hazard, is a thing of the past. The new process makes textiles just as water-repellent and quick-drying as those produced using conventional methods. “EC0Tex demonstrates that a nanometer-thin plasma coating is sufficient to achieve performance properties that were previously the preserve of PFAS”, comments Bernd Schäfer, CEO von beag, in the statement. In another statement, Bäumlin & Ernst writes: “With the EC0Tex project, in which beag plays a key role, we demonstrate how sustainable high performance textiles can be brought to market through close collaboration between research and industry”. And finally, according to an Empa statement, the project “impressively demonstrates how sustainable, high-performance textiles can achieve market maturity through joint collaboration”.

Next year, the cooperation partners Lothos and Seilfabrik Ullmann plan to launch products manufactured using the EC0Tex process. ce/ww