Industrial textile dyeing is one of the most environmentally damaging manufacturing processes in the world. It is toxic and wasteful, consuming huge quantities of water, energy, and petrochemicals.
Textile dyeing involves two major stages: the production of the pigment, which is the source of the colour, and the application of the pigment to fibre, yarn or complete garments. Current conventional methods cause serious environmental harm at both stages.
Conventional dyeing involves the use of toxic chemicals... Vibrant colours and prints are liked by consumers, but many are manufactured using toxic chemicals, such as Glauber's salt, caustic soda, hydrosulphite, concentrated acetic acid,
dispersing agent and soda ash. In countries like Indonesia, India and Bangladesh, these chemicals are discharged into wastewater, with a very negative impact of the ecosystems of lakes and rivers and leading to unhealthy drinking water for the local population.
Very high water consumption... Conventional textile dyeing uses a lot of water during both pigment production and the dyeing process itself. The ratio of dye liquor to fabric mass varies depending on fabric type and dyestuff but typically ranges from 20:1 for cotton to over 50:1 for polyester. Because dyestuffs adhere imperfectly to textile fibres, however, further repeated wash cycles are required to remove unattached pigments. High water consumption is an issue in itself, but coupled with the amount of chemicals used, this also creates a serious water pollution issue. Statistics vary, depending on which source you use, b top three most polluting industries of clean water globally.
High energy consumption: The synthesis of textile pigments from hydrocarbons in the conventional process is highly energy intensive because of the need for near freezing conditions. Production of textile dyes requires 10 MJ per kg of pigment produced. The subsequent application of the pigment to fibre or fabric in the conventional dyeing process also consumes significant amounts of energy because of the need to prepare, dye and rinse at high temperatures (typically 90°C for cotton and 130°C for polyester) followed by rinse cycles ranging from 50°C to 100°C per batch. Our bottom-up calculations suggest the energy consumption is approximately 35 MJ per kg of dyed polyester and 13 MJ per kg of dyed cotton. T average daily electricity consumption in European households ranges between 35 and 45 MJ. This means dyeing a 150g cotton T-shirt consumes the equivalent of 7% of the average daily EU household electricity consumption.
Our proprietary and innovate technology (commercially sensitive so details not public) offers the potential to disrupt the textile dying industry and alleviate the above listed challenges by an order of magnitude.
received a further +200 new contacts within the fashion and dyeing sectors.
Press Release
Colorifix, a biotech company that has pioneered the first entirely biological dyeing process, has raised a Series B round of £18m led by H&M Group via its investment arm H&M CO:LAB. Existing investors, Sagana and Cambridge Enterprise also followed on, along with participation from Bombyx Capital, PDS Multinational, Regeneration.VC and newly-launched SynBioven. By replacing industrial chemistry with biology at every step of the textile dyeing process, Colorifix is at the forefront of the industry’s transition to a more sustainable era.
The company is now entering industrial scale-up following its first customer implementation at RDD (Valerius Group) in Portugal
