A Japanese chemical firm develops next-generation sustainable materials using plant-based fibres to help drive towards carbon neutrality.

HIGHLACT by HighChem Co., Ltd uses polylactic acid (PLA) fibres made from corn.

PLA is a biodegradable plastic. Typical petroleum-based plastics can take between 100 – 1,000 years to break down naturally. Biodegradable plastics, meanwhile, can break down into water and carbon dioxide (CO₂) by micro-organisms under certain conditions in much less time.

PLA is from biomass materials such as corn. Plants absorb CO₂ as they grow. Although burning up plants releases CO₂ into the atmosphere, the total emissions of this cycle are zero. That is what we call carbon neutral.

PLA has a simple chemical structure compared to standard plastics. Because of this, its strength and heat resistance are low. HighChem developed a process using an original plant-based modifier to improve a weak point of PLA—its heat resistance. Thus, PLA’s heat resistance, which averaged 59°C, has significantly improved to an average of 145-150°C, leading to the birth of a completely new product.

And now, Hichem has teamed up with an established almost 100-year-old Japanese textile manufacturer to achieve a successful mixture of traditional methods.

Creating a next-generation sustainable material is one of the solutions to the fashion industry’s challenges of mass production, mass consumption and mass disposal.

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