Surface Engineering and Pigment Tailoring for Sustainable Dyeing of Cellulosic Materials

尽管努力改进现有工艺，但由于染料用途的来源、纺织品染色中使用的污染化学品的数量以及能源和水的使用，纺织工业仍然被认为是主要的污染物。通过利用酶的力量设计纤维素织物的可持续预处理，并使用植物类黄酮色素作为新一代纯天然染料，解决纤维素纺织品染色的挑战。纤维素纤维不仅对纺织工业非常重要，而且在生物黑客和生物塑料工业中也非常重要。尽管它们的加工仍然涉及大量的化学处理，这常常导致质量下降和保质期缩短。我们建议使用酶来提供纤维的纯生物预处理，这将不仅改善原始纤维素材料而且改善回收纤维素材料的染色和寿命。 这种酶与糖基化类黄酮（其结构中含有糖）一起将在Colombyx开发的用于工业染色的一体化生物工程系统中交付。为了监测色素结合和工业过程的质量，我们将开发适用于工业规模的基于光纤的高级分析光谱系统。工程生物工具的使用大大减少了水的使用，而黄酮类化合物的使用消除了对合成染料的需求，这些染料在资源和能源使用以及水和土壤污染方面造成了重大负担。该项目不仅旨在改变纤维素材料的处理和染色方式，还将为研究人员提供一个培训平台，使他们能够在研发和行业中发挥领导作用，从而使全球纺织制造业更快，更有效地向更可持续，更环保的工艺过渡。

Despite efforts to improve the existing processes, textile industry is still considered a major pollutant due to the origin of dyes uses, number of polluting chemicals employed in textile dyeing and use of energy and water. Proposed project tackles challenges cellulose textile dyeing by exploiting the power of enzymes to design sustainable pre-treatment of cellulose fabrics, and by using plant-based flavonoid pigments as a new generation of purely nature-inspired dyes.Cellulose fibres are not only of huge importance for textile industry, but also in biohacking and bioplastic industry, although their processing still involves extensive chemical treatment which often leads to decreased quality and shorter shelf life.We propose use of enzymes to afford purely biological pre-treatment of fibres, which will improve dyeing and longevity of not only virgin but also recycled cellulose materials. Such enzymes together with gycosylated flavonoid (containing sugar within their structure) will be delivered within all-in-one bioengineered systems developed in Colorifx for industrial dyeing. To monitor pigment binding and the quality of industrial process, we will develop optical fibre based spectroscopic system of advanced analysis, which is adaptable to industrial scale.Use of engineered biology tools significantly decreases the usage of water, while use of flavonoids removes the need for synthetic dyes, which pose a significant burden in terms of resource and energy usage, and water and soil pollution. Proposed project aims not only to change the way cellulosic materials are treated and dyed, but will also provide a training platform for researchers to prepare them to take on the leadership roles in R&D and industry, that will result in faster and more efficient transition of global textile manufacturing towards more sustainable, greener processes.