New Class of Natural Textile Fibers

PalmFil is the world’s first textile fibers and reinforcements extracted from the byproducts of pruning of date palms, such as the frond and fruit stalks.

PalmFil creates value out of the large quantities of underutilized byproducts of the 140 million date palms (FAO), which are otherwise open field burned!

It expands the palette of natural fibers and increases the biodiversity of fiber crops. Resulting in larger, more sustainable, and economical supply, which supports and encourages the industrial shift back to natural fibers.

Frond stalks

Fruit stalks

PamFil is very versatile and can be processed into many textile forms, including, long fiber tows, chopped fibers, spun yarns/ rovings, nonwoven mats, woven fabrics, unidirectional tapes, pre-impregnated, comingled and finely milled fibers.

Tow

Chopped

Yarn

Nonwoven

Woven

Composite

Applications and Industries

The unique features and characteristics of PalmFil make it an excellent sustainable material base for a wide spectrum of industries. Ranging from natural reinforcements for composites in automotive and sporting goods, plaster reinforcements in construction, burlap sacks for packaging, ropes, and twines, non-wood papers, and other consumer products.

Automotive

  • Door panels
  • Parcel Shelves
  • Engine encapsulation
  • Rear trunk cover
  • Seat backs
  • Acoustic insulation

Construction

  • Gypsum plaster reinforcements
  • Thermal insulation batts
  • Façade composites
  • Fiber-lime bricks
  • Floor covering

Sporting

  • Surf boards
  • Snow boards
  • Bicycle frames
  • Skis
  • Longboards
  • Canoes and yachts

Packaging

  • Burlap sacks
  • Hessian fabrics
  • Food & beverage containers

Ropes

  • Ropes
  • Twines
  • Geomats and nets

Non wood Paper

  • Bank notes
  • Decorative papers
  • Filter papers
  • Capacitor papers

Features and Benefits of PalmFil

Sustainable & Biodegradable

PalmFil is obtained from renewable bioresources and it does not cause deforestation or compete with food production. It is 100% biodegradable and compostable, and has the ability to naturally degrade into its basic constituents and return back into the environment. It is a native cellulose, unlike regenerated cellulose that has issues with solvent recovery. PalmFil is carbon dioxide neutral and it preserves the local farming cultures and technical heritage

Abundant

Date palm is the main element of flora in the MENA region, with very high populations in Saudi Arabia, Iran, UAE, Iraq, Egypt and Algeria. Their estimated global population is 140 mil palms, generating  4.8 mil tons/year byproducts of pruning. The estimated fiber availability from those byproducts is 1.3 million tons/year, ranking third after cotton and jute. Palm pruning is performed year round, hence consistent supply with no seasonality issues

Economical

Palmfil is obtained from palm byproducts, and do not require extra investment in water, fertilizer, pesticide or land. Those byproducts are often regarded as agriculture waste, with zero price in field. The valorization of these byproducts can provide extra source of income to palm growers, and can generate thousands of decent jobs. In addition to, creating entire value chain within rural communities.

High Performance

PalmFil specific tensile strength is 5 times higher than structural steel, and equal to those of flax, hemp and sisal. Its vibration damping and acoustical insulation is higher than those of glass and carbon and with thermal insulation higher than carbon.  PalmFil has cellulose purity up to 70% and thermal stability up to 226 °C.

Light Weight & Safe

PalmFil is 50% lighter than glass fiber, and 8% lighter than flax and hemp. It is safe for working health and does not require special personal protective equipment while handling. It also does not erode machine parts and production tools.

Resource of The Future

Five reasons why date palm is the resource of the future

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (F.A.O) regards date palm as one of the most important resources of the future because it is:

  • Highly tolerant to difficult environmental conditions.
  • Very important for food and nutrition security in deserts and drylands.
  • Its byproducts are considered renewable resources of lignocellulosic materials.
  • The utilization of its byproducts is part of a long technical heritage.
  • The main source of livelihood for the big proportion of the world population.

Technology

PalmFil is based on a proprietary technology for extracting long pure textile fibers from the date palm byproducts such as the frond and fruit stalks. The process delignifies and fibrillates the vascular bundles and eliminates the hollow lumens without causing any damage or breakage to the fibrils.

The novel PalmFil fiber was well received by the scientific community. It was featured in research and review articles in some of the most prestigious scientific journals in the field, such as, Industrial Crops and Products (Elsevier) and Cellulose (Springer).

PalmFil was also well accepted by the industrial community in Egypt, and it has been processed on a full industrial scale spinning line at the Egyptian Industrial Center of Flax. It was also of high interest to one of the largest sisal and abaca spinning companies in the Middle East, Canal Rope Company an affiliate of the Suez Canal Authority in Egypt.

PalmFil contributes to the circular bioeconomy following a closed loop cycle from cradle to cradle. Palmfil extraction technology could be applied to byproducts of other palm species such as oil palm, sugar palm, doum palm as well as other agriculture byproducts such as broomcorn.

Comparison of PalmFil properties with other vegetable fibers

Developer

Palmfil is developed by VALORIZEN Research and Innovation Center which is specialized in developing, scaling up and commercializing technologies to valorize sustainable materials. It is the research arm and a wholly owned subsidiary of UK-based Scaleup Innovations Holdings Limited. VALORIZEN operates in 3 core areas, including biomass valorization, waste valorization, as well as knowledge valorization.

Mohamad Midani Ph.D.

Managing Partner – Intexive
Asst Prof – Materials Engineering,
German University in Cairo

Ahmed Hassanin Ph.D.

Partner – Intexive
Assoc Prof – Textile Engineering,
Alexandria University

Tamer Hamouda Ph.D.

Partner – Intexive
Sr Researcher – Textile Division,
National Research Center

Lobna Elseify

Lecturer Asst & PhD student –
Materials Engineering,
German University in Cairo

Yomna Sherif

Lecturer Asst & MSc student –
Materials Engineering,
German University in Cairo

Partnership & Sponsorship Opportunities

We believe that there is a very promising future for PalmFil as a novel class of natural textile fiber, with an estimated annual market worth of US$ 2.5 billion. We are seeking partnership to further develop, scale-up, and commercialize PalmFil fiber technology.  The scope of partnership includes but is not limited to;

  • Licensing/ technology transfer
  • Support further development
  • Sponsor building a pilot production unit

Possible partners include automotive companies, OEMs of fiber extraction and spinning lines, developmental organizations, government agencies, and research funding organizations.

Contact us

For inquiries, collaboration, partnership, sponsorship, and trial samples,

Contact Dr. Said Awad
VALORIZEN R&I Center, Cairo, Egypt

info@palmfil.com

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