Trends for producing sustainable yarns in the textile industry: A mini-review

Abstract

The textile products have a significant impact on the environment in terms of water, energy and waste disposal. Thus, recycling technology reduces waste and new raw material use. This mini-review aims to explore the trends in sustainable yarn development that address the use of pre- and post-consumer textiles. We analysed articles from 2014 to 2024 from two databases, focusing on textile*, recycl* and yarn* topics, resulting in 86 articles from 49 sources and written by 262 authors, with an average of 3.51 authors per document. Keyword analysis revealed an interest in cotton and polyester fibres. Eight clusters of author keywords emerged from the thematic trends analysis, classified into basic, motor, emerging or declining and niche themes. The motor theme shows only two clusters: ‘knitted fabric’ and ‘life cycle assessment’. We presented and discussed the article clusters classified as motor themes, which are driving studies for sustainable yarn production, with the aim of gaining a thorough understanding of their current state of the art. Cotton, which includes conventional, organic and better cotton initiative fibres, is the most studied fibre. Both the knitted fabric and life cycle assessment clusters focus on waste preparation, blending and spinning processes with lower input consumption and environmental impact, but the life cycle assessment covers more textile process phases and applications.