Techtextil & Texprocess
Innovation Awards 2026: Textile Solutions for Key Global Industries
In 2026, Techtextil and Texprocess will once again send a strong signal about the industry’s innovative strength.
A total of 17 international winners were honored with the Innovation Awards, which will be presented on April 21 as part of the leading trade fairs. The award-winning innovations demonstrate how textile technologies provide solutions to key challenges in mobility, construction, medicine, and the circular economy.
The focus is on solutions for sustainability, digitalization, and new functionalities. This is particularly evident in two award-winning “New Concept” projects: Swiss yarn manufacturer Bäumlin & Ernst AG received the award for “EC0Tex,” a PFAS-free finishing process based on dry plasma. In this process, each filament is coated with an ultra-thin organosilicon layer that provides water-repellent properties without the use of environmentally harmful chemicals. In addition, the South Korean company aweXome Ray Inc. was honored for its innovation “axrial”: a scalable process for producing continuous textile fibers from carbon nanotubes. These open up new applications as conductive, extremely lightweight functional materials, for example in electric vehicles, aviation, or robotics.
The award winners are also setting new standards in the field of sustainable chemistry and materials: bio-based printing pastes made from industrial and agricultural waste, as well as innovative water-repellent finishes at the molecular level, are reducing dependence on fossil raw materials. New materials such as “knittable wood” or biodegradable high-performance polyesters demonstrate the potential of renewable resources for industrial applications.
Another key focus is on circular solutions. Enzyme-based recycling technologies enable polyester and nylon to be recycled into virgin-grade material, while electrochemical processes significantly reduce resource consumption. The goal is to transition to closed-loop material cycles.
At the same time, automation and artificial intelligence are driving the industry forward—from robot-assisted textile handling and AI-based quality control to digital fabric simulation. Even complex processes like T-shirt production are becoming increasingly automatable.
“The award-winning projects demonstrate the enormous range of textile innovations and their significance far beyond the industry,” emphasizes Sabine Scharrer of Messe Frankfurt. The award-winning solutions will be on display in Frankfurt from April 21 to 24 and are considered an important indicator of the future of the global textile industry.
