Historically, hemp fibres used to be a prominent textile raw material which had become a niche product after the textile industrialization and the rise of synthetic fibres. Due to the extreme sustainability dynamics in the recent years, industrial textile users have been looking for an alternative to cotton and synthetic fibres. Bast fibres, especially hemp, show great potential due to their highly sustainable growing conditions, their excellent technical properties and the possibility for cultivation in Europe. But the lost expertise for cultivation and processing of textile hemp has to be explored practically again first, in order to meet the growing industrial demand.
The presentation will briefly introduce the historic role, the sustainability potential and the fibre properties of textile hemp. Afterwards, the cultivation and processing steps of hemp will be displayed. Then, it will be explained how the specific individual steps influence the fibre quality and which challenges still will need to be solved. Lastly, and outlook to the commercial potential for hemp witch concrete application examples will be given.