Ever dreamt of functional fabric made from coffee grounds?

The research team at Singtex Industrial Co Ltd has patented and developed a fabric – ‘S.Cafe’ by blending fibres with coffee grounds, collected from neighbourhood coffee shops.  In this way, they managed to develop a fabric from otherwise what would be waste.

The research team at Singtex stumbled upon a fact that fibres blended with coffee grounds have the ability to control odour. Further after more research, it was found that they even had properties of UV protection and fast drying.

“The S.Cafe can also be called an eco-friendly fabric”, says a senior official of Singtex. If not recycled, these coffee grounds would have found place in landfills. The process has also helped in expanding the life cycle of the coffee bean”, he adds.

Explaining the process to fibre2fashion he informs, “The coffee grounds are re-ground into super-fine bits and mixed with molten polyester, then recycled into a composite fiber. The fibre is made into yarn, which then becomes a knitted or woven fabric”. 

The S.Cafe fabric is a recipient of many awards, among a few of which is the ‘Golden Merit’ award at INEA in 2011. It is also a recipient of two awards at Geneva Inventions in 2012 – S.Cafe was considered the best invention and also won the “Golden Merit’.

Singtex has received the bluesign standard because of which its process and in turn the final product is produced through a sustainable way. It has also built a ‘Green’ dyeing plant way back in 2008.

Singtex--- was founded in 1989, and is the world’s leading producer and supplier of functional textiles. It supplies fabrics to major global brands like Patagonia, North Face, Nike, Puma, Warrior, Timberland and many others. 

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India