Over 100 million tons of textile waste are produced each year globally, yet less than one percent of this is recycled back into textiles. This is because existing recycling methods cannot handle textiles’ interwoven, multi-material nature. Huminly develops enzymes that can turn textile waste back into high-quality inputs for textile production over and over again.
FELLOWS
Nikita Khlystov
Nikita Khlystov is co-founder and CEO of Huminly, the startup enabling infinite recycling of textile waste using enzymes. Growing up in low-income housing, Khlystov’s journey as an immigrant inspired him to work at the intersection of synthetic biology and sustainability. During college at MIT, he engineered bacteria to make bio-based plastics, and he studied lignin-degrading enzymes during his Ph.D. at Stanford University. He was awarded NSF and Stanford Graduate Fellowships and was named an Accel Innovation Scholar.
Nicholas Sarai
Nicholas Sarai is the co-founder and chief science officer of Huminly, a startup developing enzyme technologies to infinitely recycle textile waste. Sarai received his Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biophysics from Caltech under Professor Frances Arnold. His doctoral work focused on enzymatic degradation of man-made compounds, including engineering the first enzyme capable of cleaving silicon-carbon bonds. Before Caltech, Sarai studied hyperthermophilic cellulases at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and received his B.S. in biochemistry from the University of Denver.
TECHNOLOGY
Critical Need
Over 100M tons of textile material go to waste globally each year. More than half of this waste consists of fibers made from plastic, which is used alongside natural fibers such as cotton to achieve desired properties like durability, wearability, and appearance. However, this mixture of materials makes fabric blends particularly difficult to recycle using existing methods. With mounting consumer and regulatory pressure for more sustainable practices, textile manufacturers and fashion retailers are switching to recycled materials. Still, they face reduced product quality and increased material costs due to the limitations of current recycling technologies.
Technology Vision
Huminly uses tailored enzymes cost-efficiently to break down all the plastic in textile waste, unlocking efficient recycling of plastic and natural fibers alike. Huminly’s engineering platform harnesses directed evolution to rapidly accelerate enzymes toward robust plastic degradation. While existing recycling methods require substantial presorting, Huminly’s enzymes are compatible with mixed textile waste, targeting only the plastic fibers and leaving natural fibers virtually untouched. This means Huminly can turn mixed textile waste into the same high-quality materials the industry already uses for textile production. Huminly’s breakthrough technology enables true material circularity and takes advantage of a multi-billion-dollar market opportunity.
Potential for Impact
Huminly’s process operates at near-ambient conditions without harsh chemistry and is simple enough to be cost-competitive even at a small scale. This allows Huminly to go where the waste is—by distributing modular recycling reactors across supply chains, textile manufacturers can convert local waste into valuable materials that can be used on-site. By offsetting virgin fiber production from petroleum, plant, and animal sources, Huminly helps the fashion industry reduce greenhouse gas emissions and land and water usage. Decentralizing Huminly’s process along supply chains in the Global South will also help bolster local economies and facilitate greater accountability in the textiles industry.
Website
Huminly