Sächsisches Textilforschungsinstitut e.V. – STFI

The research activities at the Centre of Excellence in Nonwovens and the Innovation Centre for Technical Textiles at STFI cover everything from fiber preparation, yarn processing and fabric formation as well as different ways of finishing up to the recycling technologies of technical textiles and developments thereof. The Centre for Textile Lightweight Engineering including its technology lines and existing know-how is available to one-time customer orders, bilateral research projects and small batch series as well as joint research activities within consortia and clusters.

Carbon Fibre Recycling @STFI / W. Schmidt

Textile lightweight engineering has become one of the main research areas with all its facets at STFI in recent years. This includes the entire value chain, starting with the development of semi-finished textiles, going to formation of new, partly hybrid materials and ending with recycling and reuse. Carbon fibers reinforced plastics used for many applications like transportation and automotive sector or mechanical engineering take a large share of the research work. Other reinforcement materials, such as glass, basalt, aramid and natural fibers are also considered in various matrix systems. In addition to new material and process research, development of test-methods and more complex evaluation criteria is carried out in parallel supported by an in-house testing and certification body.

The accredited textile testing lab of STFI is constantly expanding its range of tests, also extending it to the testing of non-textile raw materials, such as composites made of glass, aramid, carbon and basalt. Furthermore, Notified Bodies for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and for Geosynthetics (0516) are carrying out certifications. STFI is a service provider for European companies and open for customers worldwide.

STFI organises regular training courses on the subjects of nonwovens, carbon fibre recycling, personal protective equipment, functional printing and electrostatics.