Bacteria Dyeing

Dyeing with bacteria

Bacteria experimentations:

During these lasts months we have been thoroughly fermenting bacteria for dyeing with my mentor Alicia Romero, from the microbiology lab at Aitex. We conducted various experiments with our 2 strains of bacteria to see how to get them to produce the maximum amount of pigment possible. After many experiments in petri dishes we successfully dyed an 2 vintage shirts of mine with Serratia Marcens, thus preparing ourselves for dyeing our final prototypes. 

Sadly our try at dyeing our final prototypes did not work out as our bacteria were not in optimal conditions to produce their pigment. This particular strain of bacteria needs very specific conditions which can be tricky to recreate. We will give it a second go making sure all conditions are optimal for pigment growth. 

As for garment dyeing with Violacein extraction from the Vienna Textile Lab, as per our first sample dyeing of swatches, our final chaquet dyed with their 100ml extraction yielded very little color. We used the Eco Finish Nebulization technology from Care Applications, available at Aitex. We have also concluded that we should have tried to dye with a lighter garment, but we had hoped that for the 80ml of dye the dyeing of the jacket would be successful.

Here is the result of our jacket dyed with Violacein.

It is clear that this technology still has a long road ahead( or a big breakthrough), but I firmly believe that it can be a very useful tool to combat climate change, air and water pollution.

Thats it for now 🙂

Loreto

Author: CRE - Wolfgang

Wolfgang is communication manager for Re-FREAM and project manager at CREATIVE REGION Linz & Upper Austria.