Cotton
is the most important natural fiber for the textile industry,
and its production relies on water- and pesticide-intensive cultivation.
Recycling cotton from waste textiles represents an important way to
close the loop of the circular economy, but it usually leads to cotton
degradation due to the harsh recycling conditions used. Here, we report
an approach for rapid and nondestructive recovery of cotton from polyester-cotton
blended fabrics via mild alkaline hydrolysis catalyzed by a binuclear
zinc catalyst. Through this method, the separation efficiency of polycotton
textiles exhibits a 7-fold improvement relative to noncatalytic alkaline
hydrolysis, with cotton recovery rate up to 97.5%. Meanwhile, the
degree of polymerization and the crystalline structure of the recycled
cotton are almost identical to that of the raw material, which is
difficult to achieve under previously demanding conditions. Moreover,
we demonstrate that this approach can process a wide range of real-world
polycotton textiles with different colors and compositions. This rapid
and closed-loop cotton-to-cotton recycling could bring great economic
value to the textile recycling industry and would significantly reduce
the consumption of fresh water and pesticides in cotton cultivation.