Mirum<\/a>.<\/p>\nLast year, the Ralph Lauren Corporation invested a minor sum in Natural Fiber Welding (NFW) with the fashion giant mentioning that it planned to use NFW\u2019s technology in an effort to create clothing from natural and sustainable materials.<\/p>\n
Founded in 2015 by Luke Haverhals, who worked as a chemist at the United States Naval Academy, NFW highlighted that after receiving funding from the U.S. Department of Defense, Haverhals discovered how to manipulate natural fiber structures at near-atomic precision.<\/p>\n
By making use of substances like hemp, waste cork, coconut and vegetable oil, NFW will produce a product that feels and looks like conventional leather but has zero plastic resins, glues or coatings that are otherwise used by other plant-based leather alternatives making it 100% free of petroleum-based plastics. For instance, materials like cork powder, a by-product of making corks for wine, can be fused with coconut fiber and as a result, strong leather with a light texture can be produced.<\/p>\n
The fibrous mixtures are then compressed with a mould creating the pattern and texture of conventional leather. Fashion brands can also send patterned textiles to NFW, that can then be turned into customised, leather-like products as well as can be coloured using nontoxic mineral pigments and plant dyes, which are mixed in without water.<\/p>\n
“The foundation of the company is plants, not plastic. The product has a similar cost to plastic alternatives, but can be made from agricultural waste and is fully biodegradable. Nature makes highly complex materials and makes those materials in abundance. And if people knew how to manufacture those materials that already exist at big scales, then it would profoundly change how people manufacture” – Luke Haverhals, founder and CEO of\u00a0Natural Fiber Welding<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Supported by Ralph Lauren, Natural Fiber Welding, a technology company commercialising sustainable materials for a circular economy, will be setting up a new facility in Illinois to develop plastic-free, plant-based leather. Set to open on West Jefferson Avenue in downtown Peoria, Illinois, the facility will span over 10,000-square-feet and will be utilized to manufacture its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[13444,16601,12518,11323,10453],"supplier":[16600,17378],"class_list":["post-85374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-fabrics","tag-fauxleather","tag-feedstocks","tag-naturalfibers","tag-recycling","supplier-natural-fibre-welding-inc","supplier-ralph-lauren-corporation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85374"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=85374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}