Berfin Freeman from the Faculty of Textile and Clothing Technology at The Hochschule Niederrhein has been honoured with the prestigious Wilhelm Lorch Prize in the "Technology" category. The prize honours outstanding work by young talent in the German textile and clothing industry. The prize is endowed with 5000 euros.
The 30-year-old studied Textile Technologies at The Hochschule Niederrhein. Parallel to her studies, she gained practical experience at the Research Institute for Textile and Clothing (FTB) in Mönchengladbach. She completed her internship semester at the Institute of Textile Technology at RWTH Aachen University.
In her award-winning master's thesis, Freeman investigated the biochemical recycling of polyester textiles. To this end, she developed a thermal pre-treatment for amorphisation, after which polyester can be broken down into monomers using enzyme-based processes. A polymer can then be synthesised from these molecules. The work thus makes a contribution to more sustainable recycling processes in the textile industry.
Today, Freeman works as a textile engineer in the development department for military textiles at Hexonia GmbH.
The Wilhelm Lorch Foundation bears the surname of the founder of Deutscher Fachverlag and TextilWirtschaft, who died in 1966. Every year, projects and talented young people in the textile and fashion industry are honoured in the categories of creation, business, technology and continuing education in retail.
