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Lucas Rosson sees a world in need of change – and he’s doing his best to change it. Now an Associate Research Fellow at Deakin University, Rosson has followed the path of sustainable textiles and mechanical engineering from undergrad to PhD and beyond, applying his inquisitive mind to some of the great existential problems of our time: how do we sustainably combat waste, and how can we arrest a changing climate?
With a focus on waste in the textile industry, Rosson’s research has already pushed the boundaries of sustainability, paving the way for greater changes to come. Chatting with Dom Hennequin for the Stories of Wonder podcast, Rosson tells his story in his own words.
Initially studying a Bachelor of Engineering (Mining) at another university, it wasn’t long before Rosson was questioning his chosen direction, wondering whether there might be a more valuable use of his time.
‘They were teaching us a subject on how you might mine the moon one day,’ Rosson says. ‘I was like, Oh, that’s a bit weird – maybe we should look after the planet we’re on now before we start worrying about going out into space and mining. That got me onto the sustainability thing of a circular economy – like, why don’t we reuse the things that we have?’
Moving to Deakin University to study a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering, Rosson’s passion for sustainability was ignited in his final year before graduation. As part of his research project, Rosson worked alongside a fellow student and supervisor who were constructing an eco-printer – a system for off-grid plastic recycling and 3D printing.
‘They took it to the Solomon Islands, went to a tip, collected plastic waste, and then used the solar panels and the battery to melt that plastic waste down and 3D print pipe connectors to fix broken water pipes there,’ Rosson says. ‘From then, I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s what I want to do – I want to research sustainable solutions, particularly around waste accumulation and climate change.’’
Mechanical engineers like Rosson are problem solvers – they work with physical machines and mechanisms, applying their sophisticated understanding of fields like physics and mathematics to push us forward in everything from robotics to aeronautics.
With his PhD, Rosson has taken the principles of mechanical engineering and pushed them into a timely and vital place – the intersection of design, mechanical engineering and textile sustainability.
Rosson’s overarching idea – to create a more sustainable textile industry – begins with the problem of waste.
Behind textile waste, says Rosson, are two different (but linked) problems. ‘There’s the waste after the textile is finished – so with the t-shirt you’re wearing, if you’ve worn it once and you don’t like it anymore or you’ve worn it 100 times and it’s got holes in it, that’s going to landfill,’ he says. ‘Also, it’s the pollution from manufacturing textiles.’
In particular, the colouring and dyeing of textiles and fabrics is a sustainability issue on the manufacturing side. Different textiles work best with different types of dye, and there are all sorts of waste-related problems that can arise. As Rosson explains, salts used to dye cotton have been shown to be harmful to the environment when released in wastewater.
‘It’s all well and good if you can extract some of these things back out of the waste, but lots of this manufacturing is happening in Southeast Asian countries that might not have the regulation that we do here,’ Rosson says. ‘And so, even though they say they’re not, a lot of the time they can be flushing the wastewater out into the local waterways and damaging the environment in that way.’
A lack of sustainability in the textiles industry is causing textile waste, and Rosson says there are systemic issues at play – especially when it comes to textiles ending up in landfill.
‘One of the professors from IFM (Institute for Frontier Materials), Chris Hurren, spoke at a Philippine Textile Congress conference, and he said Australian manufacturers or retailers throw away 50% of the textiles they purchase to sell,’ Rosson says. ‘They’re trying to pick what items are going to be fashionable or popular and, if they get it wrong, that’s what they’re throwing out.’
The reason for this wasteful trend, says Rosson, is that the system is geared towards continuous growth, meaning manufacturers are always trying to push products and increase their output – even if it results in waste.
The sustainability of textiles is a growing problem. Victorians each produce 28kg of textile waste per year, while 300,000 tonnes of textile waste is sent to Australian landfills. The UN reports that, on a global scale, the world ends up with 98 million tonnes of textile waste annually. Stats like these suggest a problem that urgently needs addressing – but what can a mechanical engineer like Rosson do about it? Quite a lot, as it turns out.
When it comes to textiles, every fibre is different. Some, like polyester, can be readily broken down and recycled while cotton cellulose traditionally can’t be recycled.
‘Cotton or cellulose, unlike polyester, can’t be melted, so it will decompose before it starts to melt,’ Rosson says. ‘Whereas polyester, you can heat it up, it turns into a liquid and then you can shape it into fibres. You heat cotton up in the same way, it’s just going to like char and turn to ash or catch fire.’
Cotton’s stubborn properties present a problem when it comes to making textiles and fibres more sustainable but, thanks to forward-thinking minds like Lucas Rosson and some advanced chemical recycling, though, that’s all changing.
Chemical recycling changes the properties of cellulose so that it acts more like polyester – at least in the sense that it can become a liquid and be reformed into new fibres.
‘To turn the cellulose into a liquid that we can shape into fibres, we have to use chemicals so they can do things that temperature can’t, and sort of pick apart the chemical groups that we need to pick apart to make it into a liquid,’ Rosson says.
As part of his PhD working with Associate Professor Nolene Byrne, Rosson experimented with different chemical recycling techniques to find the right viscosity for the cellulose – a property that more easily allows it to be spun into the fibres needed to produce sustainable textiles – and innovated to produce sustainable fibres that are coloured on the outside and uncoloured on the inside.
Rosson isn’t alone in the quest to make textiles more sustainable. He mentions businesses like ‘Circulose, a Brazilian business working on more sustainable yarn dyeing and fibre recycling processes. Rosson has also worked with Perth-based biotech company Nanollose, whose technology uses bacteria to break down food waste materials into cellulose.
In general, it seems that the future of sustainable textiles and fibre research is in good hands, with dedicated and passionate researchers constantly innovating new technologies to combat the causes of textile waste. For Rosson, that means the job is only just beginning.
After completing his PhD and spending time working with Nanollose, Rosson is now back at Deakin, working as an Associate Research Fellow, looking at ways to use AI and machine learning technology for further innovations in textile sustainability.
‘I really want to pursue this AI machine learning aspect, because I am very conscious of how fast this technology is developing, and I think it’s really important for us as scientists, particularly, to keep up with it, because I think it has tremendous potential to really change the world,’ he says.
The goal now for Rosson is to follow the potential of this technology as far as possible. ‘In 10 years’ time, I’d like to be telling you how the programme or algorithm that we developed has helped reduce textile waste by this percentage or that percentage, or at least just had some real-world impact. That’s my main goal, just to get these wonderful ideas that everyone has in research to being the rubber-on-the-road, real-world solutions.’
There’s no doubt that Lucas Rosson’s story is inspiring – making the world of textiles more sustainable is critically important. If you’re planning on going down a similar path of mechanical engineering and sustainable design, you’ll want to start at the undergraduate level. Rosson himself completed a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering at Deakin University, before undertaking a PhD.
If a mechanical engineering position is where your passions lie, consider Rosson’s path a good example of how you can take that passion and bring it to life through study, research and real-world contributions.
Although he clearly learned a lot at undergraduate level, for Rosson, the chance to complete a PhD at Deakin has left a lasting impression. With supervisor Nolene Byrne guiding him, Rosson focused on textile sustainability topics like cellulose dissolution and chemical separation of polyester-cotton blends.
But, while his PhD did unearth some groundbreaking ideas, Rosson’s most important lesson – learned from a paper suggested by a fellow academic – was that he didn’t have to try to change the world there and then. Instead, a PhD is about starting your journey, not finishing it.
‘I think the title of the paper was, “It’s A PhD, Not A Nobel Prize,”’ Rosson says. ‘You’re not trying to solve every single problem in the world; you’re just trying to show that you can contribute something new and meaningful to the scientific body of knowledge and demonstrate you can work autonomously. And so, I was like, Alright, I’ve just got to get something done and it’s a stepping stone in building up a project that might have some real-world impact.’
Associate Research Fellow,
Faculty of Science Engineering & Built Environment,
Deakin University
