The British Textile Machinery Association (BTMA) is hitting the ground running in 2025, having expanded membership to its highest level in many decades, reflecting a continuing push into many other fields beyond commodity textiles.
B&M Longworth DEECOM fibre reclamation unit.
This year, Lancashire businesses B&M Longworth and E+R Group have joined the BTMA, increasing its membership to 49 businesses overall.
DEECOM
Longworth is the creator of the DEECOM system for recycling fibers and polymers, and it has a long history of producing and supplying specialized cleaning and waste-reduction solutions for the coating and polymer industries.
In order to successfully separate and recover fibers and polymers from composite parts for reuse, DEECOM technology uses pressurized steam in a process known as pressolysis. This allows for true circularity for materials without the need for solvents, chemicals, burning, or mechanical grinding.
Following a partnership between B&M Longworth and Cygnet Texkimp, a first fibre DEECOM fibre reclamation unit has been installed at the Royce Institute in Manchester.
Longworth and fellow BTMA member Cygnet Texkimp are partnering to commercialize the technology for the composites industry, and the Henry Royce Institute in Manchester just erected the first DEECOM reclamation machine. To thoroughly explore and commercialize novel uses for waste fibers, Royce is assembling nine top institutes in a ground-breaking research and development effort.
Innovation Awards
Longworth and its partners in the Emphasizing Project receiving the JEC World 2024 Innovation Award.
For recycling components from wind blades that have reached the end of their useful lives and re-sizing and remanufacturing them into mass-produced automobile parts, Longworth and its partners in the Innovate UK-funded Emphasizing Project have previously won the JEC World 2024 Innovation Award in the Circularity and Recycling category.
This resizing material is made from glass fibers that have been recovered by DEECOM and treated with different chemicals to maintain its performance characteristics.
In the most recent news, Longworth won this year’s Make UK National Award in the Energy and Sustainability category for their groundbreaking DEECOM work at the end of January 2025.
Roll-to-roll automation
The E+R Group is a top producer of roll-to-roll manufacturing equipment, such as sophisticated printing, coating, shaping, and vacuum deposition systems, for a wide range of end-use applications, including PEM fuel cells, medical textiles, carbon fiber prepregs, and hydrophobic protective clothing.
E+R’s latest Genesis Air coater is used for development in sectors such as battery technologies, fuel cells and medical products.
The group is also active in groundbreaking projects such as the Faraday Battery Challenge involving a consortium working to develop solid-state battery technology for automotive applications. These contrast with lithium-ion and other batteries which contain liquid or polymer gel electrolytes and could prove crucial in the UK’s quest to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, through electrifying transport and devices.
Scientists at the group’s in-house technological center, who frequently collaborate on ground-breaking initiatives with outside businesses or universities, helped build the low carbon machines, which are distinguished by their sturdy construction and capacity to provide a wide variety of substrate alternatives.
As an example, the organization is now involved in the development of solid-state battery technology as part of the Faraday Battery Challenge consortium. Solid-state batteries, which do not use liquid or polymer gel electrolytes like lithium-ion and other batteries do, may be essential to the UK’s efforts to electrify electronics and transportation in order to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Recent additions to the BTMA’s membership include Cambridge-based Alchemie, which has garnered significant attention for its cutting-edge digital dyeing and finishing systems, and Airbond, a developer of pneumatic yarn splicing that enables resource efficiency in the processing of pricey fibers like carbon and aramids.
Spirit of collaboration
BTMA CEO Jason Kent.
“It’s very encouraging that many of our members are now actively involved in the fields of advanced and smart new materials – primarily high performance fibres, technical textiles and composites –for high value industries such as aerospace, renewable energy, automotive and the medical sector,” says BTMA CEO Jason Kent. “An important factor underpinning this success is the collaboration between industry and the many universities and institutes in the UK which has never been as strong as it is right now.
“On January 9th the Henry Royce Institute announced its National Materials Innovation Strategy in the House of Commons, aimed at further boosting an integrated approach to materials science that can address critical national challenges, boost economic growth and secure the UK’s position as a global leader in innovation.
“UK decision makers are now looking to support machinery innovation and development where it is intrinsic to realising the vision of the government-backed strategy and the BTMA is playing an active role in representing the textile machinery sector within various expert working groups.
“This is feeding a new optimistic spirit, which in turn feeds innovation. I’m already aware of a number of very exciting new technologies that our members will be introducing in 2025, in the build-up to ITMA Asia in Singapore this October. The first of these will be announced very shortly.”
