What Is SeaCell? Is This Fiber Too Good To Be True?
Anyone building a performance apparel brand today has to consider eco-friendly clothing materials because they're driving the entire athletic apparel market. With so many environmentally conscious fibers and fabrics, it's challenging to stay on trend - but one, in particular, deserves your attention, and that's SeaCell. So, what is SeaCell?
SeaCell is a biodegradable clothing fiber that comes from cellulose or tree fibers and organic seaweed. The material is in high demand among athletic apparel brands, since it inhibits bacterial growth, is soft and stretchy, hypoallergenic, and is derived from renewable resources.
This guide will serve as your introduction to SeaCell, helping you decide if it's an option for your brand to explore. Keep reading to learn about SeaCell's origin, how the material is made, and how viable it is for activewear brands.
What Is SeaCell? What Plant Is It From?
SeaCell is an emergent eco-friendly fabric that is derived from a mix of cellulose (from trees) and Laminaria digitata, an edible brown seaweed that's also referred to as horsetail kelp. SeaCell is produced by spinning the cellulose and seaweed together into a yarn that can be used to weave fabrics.
Though it was first introduced in 2001 by Nanonic, SeaCell only recently gained popularity in the fashion industry due to its sustainable and eco-friendly properties. The material is often used as a cotton or wool alternative in clothing and even home textiles.
Beech and eucalyptus trees are used as tree-based raw materials in SeaCell. The trees are harvested for their cellulose fibers, which come from their leaves, wood, and bark.
Beech and eucalyptus trees are regenerative and remain in a usable condition after harvesting, which means they can be sourced again in the future.
Of course, tree cellulose is only half of the equation. The other half of SeaCell is seaweed, another sustainable source. The result is a fiber that’s entirely biodegradable, highly absorbent, breathable, and soft.
How Is SeaCell Fiber Made?
The bulk of this fabric is cellulose fibers, which undergo the Lyocell production process. Lyocell is a unique process, critical to understanding how SeaCell is sustainable beyond just raw materials.
What Is Lyocell?
Lyocell is a form of rayon, but it’s made using a closed-loop system. That means all the chemicals and solvents used in the production process are recycled and reused, not released into the environment. Other rayon production processes are not as kind to the environment; including viscose and modal.
The Lyocell Process:
The Lyocell process requires several steps, but here is an oversimplified view of the process:
The cellulose fibers are first filtered and then dissolved in amine oxide, creating a pulp.
The solution is then forced through tiny holes, called spinnerets, to create fine threads of cellulose.
As the solution cools, it solidifies into cellulose fibers.
These fibers are then washed and dried to remove any residual chemicals.
After that, the fibers are ready to be spun into yarn and woven into fabrics.
Advantages of Lyocell:
Environmentally, there are several advantages of the Lyocell process over other types of rayon production:
The process is closed-loop, meaning there is no waste. All chemicals and solvents are reused.
The process uses very little water.
It’s a non-toxic production process.
It requires less energy than other processes.
The end product is biodegradable and compostable.
Worth emphasizing again, that zero-waste manufacturing as a result of a closed-loop system, comes with an amazing rate of solvent recovery - around 99% of the solvent used in each run will be reused.
Combining Lyocell Fibers With Seaweed
After the cellulose fibers that become SeaCell undergo the Lyocell process, they are now a functioning substrate to insert the seaweed. The seaweed is interwoven throughout the SeaCell fibers.
Lyocell fibers on their own are already pretty incredible, but when they’re combined with seaweed, the material becomes something really special.
The seaweed used in SeaCell is rich in vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that are beneficial for both the skin and hair. It’s these nutrients that give the fabric its unique properties.
As an activewear garment, aside from performance attributes like moisture-wicking, breathability, and antibacterial resistance; SeaCell can transfer nutrients like zinc, iodine, and calcium to the skin, once moisture comes in contact with it. Which is remarkable.
The combination of eco-friendliness, performance strengths, and health benefits of SeaCell all support its increasing demand among consumers and brands alike.
Is SeaCell Environmentally Friendly?
SeaCell meets all the criteria for being a sustainable fabric - measured in terms of biodegradability, renewability, and water usage. The cellulose and seaweed fibers of SeaCell break down in nature and are both from regenerative sources. And the closed-loop production through Lyocell mitigates waste.
When selecting fabrics to produce activewear, you know the importance of eco-friendliness. The attention to green measures has reached an all-time high, not just among consumers, but other businesses that you might partner with as well.
Keeping that in mind, how environmentally friendly is SeaCell? The answer is "incredibly friendly."
We discussed in the section prior how cellulose fiber comes from the bark and leaves of trees, which are both things that a tree may naturally shed throughout its growing periods anyway.
As for seaweed, it can grow at a significantly rapid rate: according to the Washington Sea Grant, certain species of kelp can grow between two and three feet per day.
So harvesting seaweed properly, to produce SeaCell, has minimal effect on the plant. It will regrow what it lost, and in rather short order as well!
Not only does the Lyocell production process safeguard our planet, but also the raw materials that go into SeaCell. This means more of its natural properties can come through in the final result.
Can Seaweed Really Replace Plastic?
Technically, seaweed has the potential to replace plastics in fabric. The reality though is that it's unlikely without drastic change, and even then it would take tremendous effort and time to transition. The increasing impetus for replacing non-renewables with eco-friendly alternatives does offer hope, however.
Seaweed products like SeaCell have paved the way for the sea material to possibly replace plastic someday. Plastic use in apparel, just like other industries, has long been a concern for environmentalists, but worries have trickled down to the everyday consumer as well.
Here are some of the most prevalent dangers of plastic.
Plastic Is Not Sustainable: Plastic doesn’t compost or biodegrade the same way seaweed does. Rather, it’s broken down, which simply means taking one large portion of plastic and making it into smaller bits.
Plastic Lasts A Long Time: Those small bits don’t quickly disappear either. Plastic will eventually decompose, but in a landfill, it can take upwards of 450 years for that to happen. Seaweed, by comparison, biodegrades in weeks.
Plastic Kills Wildlife: Wildlife that calls our oceans and bodies of water home can get entangled in plastic or ingest it. The animal can end up choking to death. If not, then they could have painful intestinal blockages, develop malnutrition, or even end up poisoned by the chemicals within plastics.
Seaweeds are already being implemented as plastic bags and plastic film alternatives. It seems like only a matter of time before seaweed can replace plastic in other production processes, such as an alternative to polyester or nylon, making our world that much greener.
How Is SeaCell Good for Activewear?
SeaCell is great for activewear in particular because of its durability, comfort, thermoregulation, and transference of vitamins and minerals. All of these attributes are important to activewear, which requires fabrics to be moisture-wicking, breathable, and lightweight.
Nanonic, the makers of SeaCell, know the power of this innovation on activewear specifically, so they developed an activewear line called SeaCell Active. There are a few unique and noteworthy features of SeaCell Active that are essential for anyone launching an activewear line.
Antibiotic and Full of Nutrients
How can fiber be an antibiotic, you ask? SeaCell, in its line of SeaCell Active gear, introduces silver ions to the cellulose and seaweed fabric. Silver ion is a cation and moiety that can attach to tissue proteins and affect the cell walls of bacteria.
Additionally, SeaCell’s structure allows for skin and fiber substance exchanges. In more detail the information earlier, nutrients like vitamin E, magnesium, and calcium get released through your moisture as you wear SeaCell fabric.
To put it more simply still, when you sweat, your body is flooded with nutrients from SeaCell.
This is due to how seaweed–a known anti-inflammatory–is packed full of minerals, vitamins, and amino acids.
These include, besides those mentioned above: potassium, sodium, aluminum, tocopherols, carotenoids, ascorbic acid, valine, asparagine, and arginine.
Sun Protective
SeaCell can also keep your skin protected against free radicals that come from sunlight.
Free radicals can lead to many upsetting skin effects, especially if you spend a lot of time in the sun. From saggy and loose skin to fine lines, dark spots, and wrinkles, these blemishes prematurely age us.
The seaweed in SeaCell earns the fabric a UPF 50+ rating. When the sun shines, SeaCell fabric permits only 1/50th of the UV rays from sunlight radiation to penetrate your skin.
Breathable and Moisture-Wicking
Activewear must be breathable to encourage hours of continuous wear, and SeaCell fabric is rated highly for breathability.
SeaCell is also extremely absorbent. The cellulose in SeaCell allows for excellent moisture wicking, as does the Evaporative Cooling Effect or ECE technology.
The material can also regulate the wearer’s temperature through its moisture-wicking abilities.
Skin-Sensitive
Attesting to how skin-positive it is, SeaCell can even alleviate cases of atopic dermatitis according to a 2010 study published in the journal Experimental Dermatology.
That’s due to how the fabric resists mildew and is bacteriostatic, meaning it prevents bacterial growth.
Is SeaCell the Right Choice for Your Athletic Apparel Business?
SeaCell is one of the most talked-about eco-friendly materials on the market right now.
The fabric, which is produced by Nanonic, combines seaweed and cellulose fibers for an environmentally-conscious fabric that could be ideal for your aspiring athleticwear brand.
The properties of SeaCell are very conducive to activewear, as the fabric is soft, breathable, moisture-wicking, skin-sensitive, and sun-protective. SeaCell fabric even disperses nutrients to the wearer thanks to the seaweed woven throughout.
If you're interested in learning more or are looking for ways to get started with your activewear line, let us guide you through the process and share our experience with SeaCell Active.