New Alternatives in the Valorisation of <em>Eucalyptus globulus </em>By-Products for the Textile Industry

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the use of forest raw materials to develop new products for the textile industry, focusing mainly on their use as a source of fibres. In addition to fibres, the forest industry produces many by-products, such as bark, branches and leaves, which have interesting applications in the textile sector, mainly as a source of natural dyes or as finishing products for textiles. The textile industry also requires new products with very different charac-teristics, to be used in conditions as diverse as the production of shoes, bags, jackets, thermal clothing and articles for the automotive industry, among others. These products have traditionally been made from leather, which is obtained from animal hides. However, leather production has come under enormous pressure due to sustainability concerns in various areas and the growing number of people who actively choose to avoid all animal products. The main solutions developed by the textile industry have been to apply synthetic coatings based on polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or polyurethane (PUR) to textile substrates. One of the ways to reduce the environmental impact and non-renewable content of artificial leather is to replace parts of the synthetic component with lig-nocellulosic by-products. In addition, lignocellulosic by-products could be used to add functionali-ties to textile products. The feasibility of using small branches and leaves of Eucalyptus globulus (BLE) as a component of an aqueous PUR formulation for coating textile products was evaluated. Recent works demonstrated that BLE particles had interesting antioxidant properties. The effect of the BLE particle size distribution in the PUR formulation and on the properties of the coated textile products was evaluated. The BLE particles and their size influenced the colour, appearance, hydrophobicity and mechanical properties of the coated textiles, demonstrating the industrial applicability of the process. Furthermore, the textiles coated with the BLE particles showed interesting antioxidant properties.