Accelerated Testing of Microbial Dyes for the Textile Industry

The dye and pigment industry continues to be identified as one of the biggest pollutive and toxic industries. Textile dying is the second largest water polluter and produces 20% of the world’s wastewater using almost a million tons of synthetic dyes annually. Because many of the dyes and chemicals used in this industry can cause permanent damage to the environment as well as to communities near the industrial facilities, alternative sources of non-toxic dyes must be found.

Lite-1 is using bacteria to produce natural, colourful, non-toxic dyes in an eco-friendly manner. Lite-1 dyes greatly reduce water pollution, are safer use and eliminate the dependence on non-sustainable resources.

In this project, Lite-1 will develop structure-function-relationship maps for the dyes and dyed textiles so they can be used in practical applications where they will be exposed to extreme conditions (temperature, sunlight, chemicals). In this partnership with 4D LABS and Neil Branda Lite-1’s microbial dye performance will be assessed by exposing them to extreme conditions using environmental chambers, and solar simulators and monitoring degradation using a combination of spectroscopic methods. The dyes will be integrated into fiber materials commonly used in the textile industry so that additives such as UV-blockers and absorbers can be evaluated for the ability to enhance dye performance.

Faculty Supervisor:

Neil Branda

Student:

Partner:

Lite-1

Discipline:

Physics

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

Simon Fraser University

Program: