Name: 有助於解決時尚界最大問題的意外發現 (The accidental discovery that could help solve fashion's biggest problem)
Uploaded: 2025-07-24T18:26:53.000Z
Duration: 12 min 36 s

When polyester was invented, the goal was to create a durable and resistant fabric that could retain its color and shape without wrinkles.

聚酯發明之初的目標是製造出一種耐用、耐磨、能保持顏色和形狀而不起皺的織物。

程度副詞

Nearly 85 years later, polyester is everywhere.

近 85 年後的今天，聚酯無處不在。

基礎被動語態

Today, most clothes contain synthetic material, and much of that material is derived from plastic.

如今，大多數衣服都含有合成材料，其中大部分材料來自塑膠。

What made this fabric magic at one point is now the reason for its disrepute.

這種面料曾一度具有神奇的魔力，如今卻成了它聲名狼藉的原因。

And with less than 1% of textile waste recycled into new garments, the vast majority of the clothes we wear end up in landfill.

而只有不到 1%的紡織廢料被回收利用製成新衣服，我們穿的絕大多數衣服最終都被填埋了。

Between 22 and 23, manufacturing of textile fibers in the world grew from 116 to 124 million tons.

22 至 23 年間，全球紡織纖維產量從 1.16 億噸增至 1.24 億噸。

Now, the problem with polyester, it's not going to disappear.

現在，聚酯的問題是，它不會消失。

But what if there was a way to break down these fibers and recycle polyester into new clothing infinitely?

但是，如果有一種方法可以分解這些纖維，並將聚酯纖維無限循環利用，製成新衣服，那又會怎樣呢？

It's a question that prompted French engineering group Technip Energies to collaborate with American business tech leader IBM.

這個問題促使法國工程集團 Technip Energies 與美國商業技術領導者 IBM 合作。

Riju is aiming at building a complete ecosystem to tackle the challenge of textile-to-textile recycling.

Riju 的目標是建立一個完整的生態系統，以應對從紡織品到紡織品的回收挑戰。

We have been concerned about circularity in the carbon economy for a long time.

我們對碳經濟的循環性關注已久。

And that led, over a couple of years of conversations with Arnaud, to saying, let's see if we can progress this to whether it's real, not just a science lab experiment.

於是，在與阿爾諾的幾年交談中，我們開始討論：讓我們看看是否能把它變成現實，而不僅僅是一個科學實驗室實驗。

What's unique about Riju is our ability to take the polyester out and then depolymerize the polyester.

Riju 的獨特之處在於，我們能夠取出聚酯，然後將聚酯解聚。

We could potentially not need to take any new raw materials out of the ground to make polyester.

我們有可能不需要從地下提取任何新的原材料來製造聚酯。

The whole story started at Technip Energies in one of our labs.

整個故事始於 Technip Energies 公司的一個實驗室。

And the team telling us, listen, we do have something around textile-to-textile recycling.

團隊告訴我們，聽著，我們確實有一些關於紡織品到紡織品的回收。

In order to achieve the complete flow sheet, we need a few partners.

為了實現完整的流程表，我們需要一些合作伙伴。

One of our researchers had come up with a way to find a much, much more cost-effective way, in principle, of recycling a particular kind of polyester called PET.

我們的一位研究人員想出了一種方法，原則上可以找到一種成本效益更高的方法來回收一種叫做 PET 的特殊聚酯。

And then we said, all right, but we are not going to be in this business.

然後我們說，好吧，但我們不會做這一行。

So how do we find a partner who might be interested?

那麼，我們如何找到可能感興趣的合作伙伴呢？

當時我是仙女座公司的首席執行官。

And we were looking for a new technology to enable us to really get access to polyester at scale from textile source in the future.

我們正在尋找一種新技術，使我們將來能夠真正從紡織品源頭大規模獲得聚酯。

IBM had a technology called Volcat at the time that they announced in 2019.

IBM 在 2019 年發佈了一項名為 Volcat 的技術。

While you can already buy clothes made from recycled polyester, most of it comes from plastic bottles, not recycled clothing.

雖然你已經可以買到用回收聚酯纖維製成的衣服，但其中大部分來自塑料瓶，而不是回收衣服。

A textile-to-textile solution that cuts recycled bottles from the process altogether could prove to be a more sustainable solution.

從紡織品到紡織品的解決方案將回收瓶從生產過程中完全剔除，這可能被證明是一種更具可持續性的解決方案。

You break it down into bits and parts to go back to the monomer.

你把它分解成各個部分，再回到單體中。

You regenerate the monomer, so the basic molecule, and you recreate the long chain again.

你再生出單體，也就是基本分子，然後再次生成長鏈。

It's named chemical recycling, so there's no burning, there's no heat.

它被命名為化學回收，是以沒有燃燒，也沒有熱量。

And in the process, we are purifying the product.

在這個過程中，我們正在淨化產品。

We're separating polyester from cotton, from dye, and you rebuild a longer chain of the polymer itself.

我們正在將聚酯從棉花和染料中分離出來，你將重建聚合物本身更長的鏈。

是什麼讓我們想在那裡擔任上司？

Two, that we can scale this up probably better than no one else.

第二，我們可能比任何人都能更好地擴大規模。

And then it's, you know, as a citizen of the world, you think about the hundreds of millions of tons of textile being dumped into deserts every year, and that is a concern to me.

然後，你知道，作為世界公民，你會想到每年有數億噸紡織品被傾倒在沙漠中，這讓我感到擔憂。

Technip Energies is best known for energy engineering, such as LNG, hydrogen, and carbon capture.

Technip Energies 最著名的業務是能源工程，如液化天然氣、氫氣和碳捕集。

But the company has also been involved in the chemical market.

In 2014, the firm, under a previous entity, acquired Zimmer Polymer in Frankfurt, one of the originators of polyester science and manufacturing.

2014 年，公司在前一個實體的上司下，收購了法蘭克福的 Zim Polymer 公司，該公司是聚酯科學和製造的鼻祖之一。

The core knowledge is around the molecule.

So we can go from whatever feedstock, oil, gas, and transform that into whatever end product.

是以，我們可以從任何原料（石油、天然氣）出發，將其轉化為任何最終產品。

What's missing today is really the entire slice, if you like, in the circularity model of textile-to-textile regeneration or recycling that begins from waste aggregation all the way to reintroduction into the textile value chain.

現在缺少的實際上是紡織品到紡織品再生或循環利用的循環模式中的整個片斷，如果你願意的話，這種循環模式從廢物聚集一直到重新引入紡織品價值鏈。

We realized that if we were going to be able to be successful, it was not just about the technology.

我們意識到，如果要取得成功，就不能僅僅依靠技術。

We own a certain amount of the intellectual property.

我們擁有一定數量的知識產權。

We have given it to Reju as part of our equity share in the entity.

我們已將其交給 Reju，作為我們在該實體所佔股份的一部分。

Total investments so far, including, I would say, the Regeneration Hub Zero that we have built and erected in Frankfurt is something around 100 million euro to date.

到目前為止，包括我們在法蘭克福建造的零號再生樞紐在內的總投資約為 1 億歐元。

Today, we're very, very lucky and very fortunate.

今天，我們非常、非常幸運，也非常幸運。

You know, we have one of the largest engineering companies in the world behind us, and currently being, you know, 100% also funded by Technip Energies.

要知道，我們背後有世界上最大的工程公司之一，而且目前還得到了 Technip Energies 公司 100% 的資助。

Reju started about four or five years ago.

所以，還有更多精彩等著我們。

In 2025, for example, we said that this could represent up to another 15 million.

例如，在 2025 年，我們說這可能代表另外多達 1 500 萬人。

We are likely going to open the capital of Reju to other parties interested into the scale-up.

我們很可能會向對擴大規模感興趣的其他各方開放 Reju 的資本。

As I talked to Arnaud and some of his people, it became clear in my head, what we tend to do is very, very high-end science, and I'm okay to put very expensive people and equipment against it, but when you really need to make it scale, it's kind of got to work, as I put it.

當我與阿爾諾和他的一些同事交談時，我逐漸意識到，我們所做的往往是非常非常高端的科學，我可以用非常昂貴的人員和設備來支持它，但當你真的需要讓它擴大規模時，就像我說的那樣，它必鬚髮揮作用。

The plant may cost a couple of hundred million dollars.

You've got these steel pipes and processes and distillation things.

它必須在所有這些方面都發揮作用。

We have actually designed most of the technology you see in this place inside of our company, which is, of course, a competitive advantage, but also something that's very challenging because you do not know, to begin with, whether everything is going to work, you know, seamlessly.

實際上，你們在這裡看到的大部分技術都是我們公司內部設計的，這當然是一種競爭優勢，但同時也是一種非常具有挑戰性的東西，因為你從一開始就不知道所有東西是否都能無縫運行。

So that's one of the reasons why you build one of these demo plants.

是以，這也是你建造這些示範工廠的原因之一。

Each plant will generate or recycle 50,000 tons per annum.

每個工廠每年將產生或回收 50,000 噸廢物。

So if you do 10 plants, you're in a half-million ton, so it's already half of what is being recycled today, and our ambition is certainly not to stop at two plants or 10 plants, but to go 20, 40.

我們的目標當然不是停留在兩家工廠或 10 家工廠，而是 20 家、40 家。

Our team who was working on it really came at it from a science perspective.

我們的工作團隊真的是從科學的角度出發的。

They weren't necessarily the best at thinking about if it gets up to 100,000 metric tons a year, what will that scale look like?

他們並不一定最善於思考，如果年產量達到 10 萬噸，這個規模會是什麼樣子？

IBM, much larger company than Technip Energies.

IBM 是一家比 Technip Energies 大得多的公司。

So to be able to align, I would say, the pace of an IBM or a Technip Energies to IBM, we go probably a lot faster than they go.

是以，我認為，要想與 IBM 或 Technip Energies 的步伐保持一致，我們可能要比他們快得多。

But the beauty is that with Arvind, IBM CEO, basically he aligned his organization and he gave them the space to breathe and to move at our pace.

但妙就妙在，IBM 首席執行官阿文德基本上調整了他的組織，給了他們喘息的空間，讓他們按照我們的步伐前進。

And then the big challenge that we were facing and we are still facing is, why do you think that Riju is going to succeed where everyone else has failed?

然後，我們面臨的巨大挑戰是，為什麼你認為 Riju 會在其他人都失敗的地方取得成功？

The textile-to-textile market, while nascent, has been growing through different parts of the supply chain.

紡織品到紡織品市場雖然剛剛起步，但在供應鏈的不同環節一直在增長。

German company Soex focuses on sorting clothing by material and color, using AI in the recognition process.

德國 Soex 公司專注於根據材料和顏色對服裝進行分類，並在識別過程中使用了人工智能。

American business CERC is the developer of a technology that separates polyester from cotton without damaging the fibers.

美國企業 CERC 是一項技術的開發者，該技術可在不破壞纖維的情況下將聚酯從棉花中分離出來。

And Firm Avenue recycles cotton fibers by shredding and liquefying them into pulp, allowing them to extrude new fibers for clothing.

Firm Avenue 通過將棉纖維切碎並液化成紙漿來回收棉纖維，使其能夠擠壓出新的纖維用於服裝。

If you would have asked me five years ago or 10 years ago, Patrick, you're going to be the CEO of a chemical engineering company, I would have probably thought that you were a little bit crazy.

如果你在五年前或十年前問我，帕特里克，你將成為一家化學工程公司的首席執行官，我可能會認為你有點瘋了。

We've learned from IBM how digital can actually accelerate innovation.

我們從 IBM 身上學到了數字化如何真正加速創新。

From Patrick, we've learned about branding and the power of marketing.

從 Patrick 身上，我們學到了品牌和營銷的力量。

I learned a lot about how lean can one be when one is taking something from the lab into real life.

我學到了很多，當一個人把實驗室裡的東西帶到現實生活中時，他能做到多麼精益求精。

我肯定是從阿爾諾那裡學到的。

He was trying to think through, how do I go small?

他在努力思考，我該如何變小？

Patrick, for example, joining Riju and being the CEO of Riju, he knew about his value chain from a sporting, I mean, from a brand perspective.

例如，帕特里克加入 Riju 並擔任 Riju 首席執行官後，他從運動的角度，我是說，從品牌的角度，瞭解了自己的價值鏈。

What to buy, where from, with what quality.

買什麼，從哪裡買，品質如何。

And by the way, on a side note, Arnaud and I share a love for fast cars, so that actually also became a lot of fun to talk about all along the way.

順便說一句，我和阿爾諾都喜歡開快車，所以一路上聊起來也很開心。

So in spite of the distance, in spite of the fact that we were meeting through Teams, we found really very quickly a common ground, a common interest and a common ambition.

是以，儘管距離遙遠，儘管我們是通過團隊認識的，但我們很快就找到了共同點、共同的興趣和共同的抱負。

It was about doing good, but it was about doing good through a business.

這是為了做好事，但這是為了通過企業做好事。

So the returns are not financial today because we went from lab to demo plant and next is to go full scale.

是以，今天的回報並不是財務上的，因為我們從實驗室到示範工廠，下一步就是全面發展。

So the returns would start kicking in 2027, 2028 and beyond.

是以，回報將從 2027 年、2028 年及以後開始啟動。

Regeneration Hub Zero opened in Frankfurt, Germany in October 2024.

零號再生樞紐於 2024 年 10 月在德國法蘭克福啟用。

The demo plant has the capacity to produce 1,000 metric tons per year of the brand's proprietary product, RegiPolyester.

示範工廠每年可生產 1,000 公噸該品牌的專利產品 RegiPolyester。

So what we have here is pure polyester, which is something that we need when we begin to calibrate all of the equipment inside of Regeneration Hub Zero.

是以，我們在這裡看到的是純聚酯，這正是我們開始校準零號再生中樞內所有設備時所需要的。

And this is what it looks like coming in.

And also after we're done here at Regeneration Hub Zero, what we polymerize back into.

在 "零號再生中心 "工作結束後，我們將聚合成什麼？

So this is actually what's needed to make fibers and yarns again in the circular loop.

是以，這實際上就是在循環中再次製造纖維和紗線所需要的。

Inside of here, you have over 500 valves, 42 kilometers of electrical wiring, four kilometers of pipe and also over 200 different process instruments.

這裡有 500 多個閥門、42 公里長的電線、4 公里長的管道和 200 多個不同的工藝設備。

Regi's technology is based off the Volcat or Volatile Catalyst developed by IBM.

Regi 的技術基於 IBM 開發的 Volcat 或 Volatile Catalyst。

The process involves rejuvenating PET found in some packaging and polyester.

該工藝包括對某些包裝和聚酯中的 PET 進行再生處理。