Revolutionising Waterless Textile Dyeing through Optical Colour Mixing and Machine Learning Colour-recipe Prediction

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

**Public Description:**Conventional textile dyeing is a significant environmental concern, utilising vast quantities of water, estimated at 92 billion m3 annually, and involving substantial chemical usage. It generates a large amount of wastewater, and valuable dyes worth around 800 billion GBP are discarded as effluents every year. Moreover, the traditional colour creation process is often error-prone and wasteful, heavily relying on colourist's expertise and analogue lab dips. Our groundbreaking project, in collaboration with Amphico and the University of Leeds, aims to revolutionise the textile industry through our innovative waterless coloured textile production and a data-driven, machine learning (ML) based textile colour creation approach. By cleverly combining a colour creation method with dope dyeing, we are able to develop a low minimum order quantity, low impact, low carbon and low cost waterless coloured textile.Amphico is a material science company, with expertise in advanced polymer blending and performance textile development, committed to transforming the textile industry through innovative, sustainable material and manufacturing technology aimed at increasing resource efficiency and reducing chemical-pollution. With Innovate UK's support, we aim to bring about a sustainable shift in textile production:**• Planet:** Our innovative colouration method, which introduces colour at the polymer solution phase before yarn extrusion, dramatically reduces water usage by 90% and CO2 emissions by a substantial 96% compared to traditional water bath dyeing methods. The integration of our ML colour-recipe prediction system into the colour creation process minimises waste, significantly enhances design efficiency and aligns with global sustainability goals.**• People:** Our project offers significant advantages for end users. We enhance product aesthetics and lifespan with improved colour quality and durability, reducing the need for frequent replacements. Our low-MOQ production provides a variety of colours from fewer primary coloured yarns, expanding customer choice. Our Machine Learning colour-recipe prediction software will allow textile manufacturers and brands to tailors production to market needs, enabling personalisation. Importantly, our eco-friendly dyeing process allows consumers to align purchases with sustainability goals, balancing consumer satisfaction with environmental responsibility.**• Profit:** Through our partnership with leading academic institutions and potential alliances with industrial stakeholders, our innovative waterless coloured textile and ML software provide apparel brands with opportunities to achieve their sustainability targets, reduce their environmental impact while improving their margins. By producing high-quality textiles suitable for scaling in global markets in partnership with our brand partners, we create a profitable solution, contributing to the UK textile and apparel economy.