Ting Xu, a campus professor in chemistry and materials science and engineering, will lead a team of scientists in creating a biodegradable protein-based fabric.
The Bezos Earth Fund awarded Xu’s team $10 million, a portion of the total $34 million in grants announced this year. The funds will go toward multiple projects aimed at reinventing the fashion and textile industry with sustainable materials. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos created the fund in 2020 as part of his $10 billion pledge to address climate issues.
“This project stood out for its focus on developing biodegradable materials that could replace conventional synthetic fibers and help address textile waste and pollution,” said a Bezos Earth Fund spokesperson in an email. “The funding supports both the research and efforts to move these materials closer to practical use.”
Textiles and manufacturing are responsible for roughly 80% of the fashion industry’s environmental footprint, according to a press release from the Bezos Earth Fund. A 2023 United Nations Environment Programme report also noted that the textile sector is responsible for 9% of annual microplastic pollution in oceans.
The project aims to extract proteins from compost and industrial waste and convert them into biodegradable fibers, according to Xu.
Xu added that although the project team is not finalized, it will include data scientists who will use AI to understand how proteins can mimic synthetic polymers. According to a UC Berkeley press release, the project will also consist of an interdisciplinary team of scientists across six campus departments, along with researchers from Stanford University and Caltech.
Some challenges accompanying this project include ensuring that the biodegradable textile is affordable, scalable and “consumer proof,” Xu said.
Xu emphasized that the history of the fashion industry began with natural fibers such as silk rather than synthetic fibers such as today’s nylon.
“What’s most amazing is that in a hundred years, we’re really going in circles,” Xu said. “We started with textiles made from proteins, then we went to synthetic proteins … and now we are going back to our roots.”
Xu also noted that large fashion brands including Puma, Lululemon and Patagonia have expressed interest in adopting biodegradable textiles for their products.
Previously, Xu worked on refining compostable plastic, as her lab embedded polymer-eating enzymes into polyesters to biodegrade plastics. The enzymes were activated by lukewarm household tap water or soil compost.
“This is actually a combination of everything I’ve worked on before,” Xu said. “My work with compostable plastics allowed me to interact with the fashion industry and to learn the constraints that the industry has.”