FOYSE Technology Sustainable Solution for Future Mesh Materials

With more than 30-years experience within cross disciplinary design, Dr Reynolds combined her passion for next generation textiles and science to undertake a PhD in textile innovation. Dr Reynolds is the first Black British female inventor holding a patent for a novel textile technology, removing the limitation of three known methods of fabric construction.

The aim of the project is to disrupt the mesh material sector of the textile market by using Dr Reynolds patented, award- winning technology. Mesh is a broad term for fabric characterized by open spaces between the yarns. By Technology, the mesh fabric segment of textile manufacture is divided into Woven and Knit despite its vast usage.

Mesh fabric is widely used for many purposes and a variety of industries like recreation, Occupational Safety, Aeronautics, Automotive, Marine, Healthcare, Filtration and Substrates are a few outputs.By material type, the segment is trifurcated into polyester, Nylon, and Other. Polyester is one of the most commonly used. The driving properties of polyester are durability, lightweight, ease to clean, resistance to mildew, and tear resistance.

Nylon is second dominating in the mesh fabric market. Nylon and polyester are made from petrochemicals, these synthetics are non-biodegradable as well, so they are inherently unsustainable on two counts. Nylon manufacture creates nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 310 times more potent than carbon dioxide causing much harm to the planet.

This project will introduce a selection of economically viable sustainable textile alternatives to current synthetic mesh fabrics.

FOYSE technology is the name given to the yarn based noninterlaced manufacturing process.The name FOYSE is derived from the acronym Fibre on Yarn Surface Entanglement. As a textile engineering innovation FOYSE deals with the application of scientific and engineering principles to the design and control aspects of fibre. FOYSE technology is a novel method of making which uses yarn to manufacture textiles without the interlacing (weaving) or interlooping (knitting) processes.

Therefore the process can manufacture textiles at 50% of the weight of its competitors. The incorporation of surface fibre entanglement is the inventive step within yarn manufactured textiles that provides potential fabrics with a high air content and exceptional acoustic properties. Finally the fibre entanglement feature the layering process of construction provides an area for the seamless embedding of items such as sensors or non-hairy yarn and filament to create extra strong or reactive fabric surfaces. FOYSE provides a faster manufacturing process for sustainable solutions.