Discover NC Textile Hemp Keynote: Decoding Hemp Fiber through Pulp and Paper Fiber Science

Satish Hodage on turning hemp into a spinnable fiber for existing U.S. textile infrastructure.

At the Discover NC Textile Hemp event, Satish Hodage of YUJ Labs laid out both the promise of hemp as a textile fiber and the challenge that has kept it from reaching widespread commercial adoption.

Hemp already has a compelling agricultural story. It can be grown with relatively low water and chemical inputs and offers carbon sequestration benefits. The larger challenge, Hodage explained, comes after the crop leaves the field: How do you transform a naturally coarse, rigid bast fiber into a soft, consistent, spinnable textile fiber without losing the environmental benefits that made hemp attractive in the first place?

That question has shaped Hodage’s work since he began exploring hemp fiber in 2019.

Solving the Missing Link

Traditional cottonization methods can require significant amounts of water and aggressive chemistry. For Hodage, that presented an obvious contradiction.

“We are talking about growing hemp with less water, less chemistry, and at the same time, we are using chemicals to process these hemp fibers,” he explained.

Drawing on years of experience in the pulp and paper industry, Hodage began looking at technologies already used to modify cellulose fibers and considering how they could be adapted for hemp.

The goal was bigger than simply producing a softer fiber. The process also needed to work within the textile manufacturing infrastructure already available in the United States.

That became one of the guiding principles behind YUJ Labs’ work: Don’t rebuild the textile industry. Develop a fiber that can run through the equipment already here.

That challenge ultimately led Hodage to develop the AviraCEL™ Platform, a processing system designed specifically to bridge the gap between raw hemp fiber and commercial textile manufacturing.

Introducing the AviraCEL™ Platform

To address those challenges, Hodage is developing the AviraCEL™ Platform, an integrated wet-processing platform designed to transform hemp into a textile-grade fiber using fiber-safe chemistries.

The platform is engineered to deliver the characteristics textile manufacturers need, cotton-like softness, spinnability, uniformity and cost-efficiency while maintaining the environmental advantages that make hemp an attractive fiber in the first place.

Just as importantly, AviraCEL™ is being developed to work within existing textile manufacturing infrastructure.

“The objective of this technology was not to rebuild the industry,” Hodage explained. “Can we run these programs on the existing dye houses?”

That principle has shaped the platform from the beginning. Rather than requiring mills to invest in specialized hemp-processing equipment, the goal is to produce a refined fiber capable of moving through existing carding, spinning, dyeing and manufacturing systems.

“We’re not rebuilding the industry. We’re running in it.”

Satish Hodage

Early testing is showing promising results. According to Hodage, the AviraCEL™ process operates at a pH of approximately 8 to 8.5 without caustic chemicals. Fiber loss has been maintained at roughly 10 to 12 percent, while 20 to 40 percent of the water used during degumming can be recirculated or reused.

The team has also achieved yarn-production process efficiencies of approximately 80 to 85 percent while running the processed fiber through existing equipment.

For a developing U.S. textile hemp industry, that could be significant. The commercial opportunity is not simply creating a softer hemp fiber. It is creating a repeatable, cost-effective fiber that manufacturers can actually use within the systems they already operate.

From North Carolina Fields to Finished Products

The work is already moving beyond the laboratory.

Hemp grown and decorticated in North Carolina was processed using YUJ Labs’ technology and then taken through yarn development with partners in the state. The team has successfully produced a 30/70 hemp-cotton blend and continued testing the material through existing manufacturing equipment.

That progress is the result of collaboration across the textile value chain.

Hodage pointed to the Textile Innovation Engine’s ability to connect growers, processors, researchers, spinners and manufacturers as one of the most important elements of the project. Partners including BioPhil Natural Fibers, Gaston College and the Manufacturing Solutions Center have contributed processing expertise, testing, data and manufacturing capabilities.

“The biggest success of the NC Textile Innovation Engine is bringing these partners together,” Hodage said.

That network is helping address a problem no individual company could solve alone.

From a Garage Experiment to a North Carolina Pilot

The trajectory of the technology itself demonstrates what an innovation ecosystem can make possible.

Hodage began experimenting with the process at home in 2019, initially using a pressure cooker. Through connections with NC State and the Textile Innovation Engine, the work progressed from those early experiments to laboratory development and international testing.

The results provided enough evidence to move toward the next stage: development of a pilot facility in North Carolina.

Hodage described the progression as moving “from a garage level to the lab scale to the pilot facility,” with commercial partners now being identified to help take the technology further.

The work remains in research and development, and Hodage was careful not to characterize it as a finished commercial solution. Instead, the project is establishing repeatable data, validating fiber batches and using designed experiments to understand whether the process can consistently perform at larger scale.

Building the Infrastructure Around the Fiber

Processing technology is only one piece of the challenge.

Unlike cotton, hemp does not yet have widely established fiber standards defining the characteristics manufacturers can expect from one bale to another. Developing those standards will be critical if mills and brands are expected to confidently incorporate hemp into their supply chains.

The project is bringing together expertise from NC State, Gaston College, the Manufacturing Solutions Center and other partners to begin developing common standards and testing methods. Life cycle assessment work is also being initiated to provide the environmental data brands increasingly expect when evaluating new materials.

The longer-term vision is a textile hemp consortium capable of connecting the individual pieces into a commercial platform, from agriculture and decortication to fiber refinement, spinning, manufacturing and ultimately brand adoption.

For Hodage, that collaboration is essential.

The opportunity is not simply to prove that hemp can become a textile fiber. It is to build the processes, standards, partnerships and manufacturing pathways that allow it to become a repeatable, scalable and commercially viable part of the U.S. textile industry.

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