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Revision as of 20:13, 13 September 2018
CONNECT WITH US
Dr. Foo Jee Loon
Dr. Foo Jee Loon is a senior research fellow from the Department of Biochemistry at the NUS Yong Yoo Lin School of Medicine. We approached him for his expertise in engineering microbes for biochemical production. He reviewed the metabolic pathway that we were proposing and determined that controlling the flux of intermediates was key to allowing our engineered cells to switch between different product pathways.
He noted that the project would be complex due to the large number of enzymes involved. Because of this, he warned us of the large amount of characterization work that would be required if the functional data on these enzymes were unavailable. He advised us to start by engineering a bacterium that could perform the second half of the pathway using one the intermediates as feedstock. At the same time, we could design an efficient and sensitive method to control the expression of key genes to influence the flux of intermediates.
Some of the other tips he gave us included the use of monoculture rather than polyculture due to better mass transfer characteristics. He also introduced us to the concept of bioremediation, which would further enhance the environmental impact of our project.
Mr. Holger Schlaefke
Mr Holger Schlaefke is the Global Marketing Manager for Cellulosic Dyes at Huntsman Textiles Effects. With an impressive 21 years of experience in the dyeing and textile industry under his belt, he was well equipped for us to approach to find out more about what we should consider when designing a dye. It helped that Mr Schlaefke was warmly hospitable and accommodating, and extremely forthcoming with his knowledge about dyes.
The interview validated the need for more sustainable dyeing technologies to reduce the water pollution caused by the textile industry, and helped us affirm the key aspects of the problem. We also found the answers we sought! From an industry perspective, we now know that we should take into account how dye manufacturers need to be agile in response to the fashion industry’s ever-changing demands for the trendiest colours of the season, and the requirements our dye must fulfill to be considered eco-friendly, among others.
On the topic of natural versus sustainable dyes, we learned that the industry is keener on using synthetic dyes rather than natural dyes even though natural dyes are considered more environmentally friendly. This is because of the industry’s perception that firstly, synthetic dyes are superior to natural dyes in terms of wear resistance, secondly, producing synthetic dyes is less complicated and time consuming, and finally, companies producing synthetic dyes would have to completely change their machinery and infrastructure. This was why he foresees that it will be difficult to persuade textile producers and other major stakeholders to adopt new, potentially industry-disrupting solutions involving natural dyes.
We then shared our vision of producing natural dyes biosynthetically, to which he listed important challenges and obstacles to anticipate and overcome should we decide to continue on this path. Furthermore, he suggested that producing primary colours or brighter and bolder colours would be more impressive and would make our solution more attractive to our stakeholders.
At the end of the interview, Mr Holger encouraged us to never give up, and even jestingly reminded us that whatever we do, there was one thing we should never forget - to get a patent for our project!
Mr. Gerard Talhoff
Mr Gerald is the Global Manufacturing and Supply Chain Vice President of the DyStar Group. His current responsibilities range from managing global manufacturing footprint to supply chain management and even to corporate sustainability. With more than 20 years of experience in the dye industry under his belt, Mr. Gerald was able to impart pearls of wisdom gleaned from his many years of experience to our inquisitive young minds.
During our interview with Mr Gerald, he introduced to us the core tenets driving DyStar’s sustainability initiatives. Central to their thrust was a three-fold approach - reducing the production carbon footprint, ensuring consumer safety by keeping hazardous chemicals out of textiles and dyes used, and striving for biodegradable textiles and materials used for dyeing.
Mr Gerald validated our proposed design, pointing out that balancing environmental friendliness and commercial feasibility would no longer be unfeasible. Instead, co-opting sustainable practices in textile dyeing would become a competitive advantage; governmental agencies around the world are taking tougher actions against environmentally-unfriendly practices and pollution.
When discussing our potential solutions, he anticipated a critical hurdle we would have to overcome: our solution must attain significant yield for it to have a significant impact on the dye market. From his experience, past attempts at producing bio-engineered dyes have failed to become commercially-viable due to their failure to achieve significant yield. This is a potentially disastrous pitfall that we must seek to circumvent.
Besides our solution of producing microbial dyes, Mr Gerald warned us against the production of natural dyes using agricultural biomass as feedstock. The resulting competition between food production and natural dye production would indeed be very unfavourable for. In addition, disposal of used biomass would exacerbate the problem of resource wastage. Adding to his previous point, Mr Gerald taught us that it was imperative to evaluate the entire production process for its eco-friendliness, taking into account energy and water consumption, waste generation, to name a few.
An interesting twist to the end of the interview, Mr Gerald raised the possibility for the obsolescence of dyes in future, as textiles could coloured by virtue of its physical properties, or perhaps the invention of new materials that are not amenable to current dyeing methods. To tie the interview up, before continuing on our journey with synthetic biology, he encouraged us to evaluate bioengineered products around the world critically.
Miss Leong Minyi
Miss Leong Minyi, a Fashion Design graduate of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, is the founder of Mai Textile Studio. Her beautiful art and clothes are created using indigo dye and traditional Japanese techniques such as shibori and katazome. As she currently works directly with natural dyes and textiles, we felt that her perspective on our problem would be invaluable.
Having come fresh from a team meeting about the salient points gained from our interview with a representative from the synthetic dye industry, it was interesting to see which were supported by Miss Leong, and on which points did their views diverge. For example, both parties agreed that natural dyes appealed to a niche market in Singapore, and for the most part, consumers are not concerned with the origin of the dye, but rather how it looks on their clothes as well as their bank account statements.
However, Miss Leong was more skeptical about the representative’s recommendations on how natural dyes could be made more appealing to a wider market, so she gave us some suggestions of her own.Miss Leong mentioned that natural dyes could be made more appealing through branding and marketing. Having a narrative behind the brand can evoke emotions in consumers. Furthermore, colour play, cutting and modernization of designs are also essential to appealing to a wider market. For greater public acceptance of bio-manufactured dyes, a narrative on its environmental sustainability is required, in addition to informing consumers on important dye performance indicators (stability, lightfastnest, colurfastness, reliability). She also stated that removing biased preconceptions against “bacteria” products would be helpful.
Miss Leong cautioned us that yellow was not a popular locally worn colour, but was a non-issue compared to the replacement of synthetic dyes. Miss Leong also recommended to focus on the production of synthetic dyes, achieve good colour mixing and produce an array of colours.
Drawing on her experience of working with natural dyes, she taught us much about the different plants we could consider extracting dyes from and creative techniques such as infusing cellulose-based textiles with proteins or tannins to increase the the fabric ability to absorb dyes. We even touched on her deeply moving experience of meeting her idol, the late legendary experimental textile designer Junichi Arai. From this interview, we became aware of even more factors to consider when designing our dye, such as the ratio of water to dye to the weight of the fabric, or how much dye is required to get a specific intensity.
Her artisanal approach has introduced our team to a whole new paradigm, where the inherent flaws of natural dyes are valuable precisely because of their imperfect nature. One criticism of natural dyes is that they are dull and muted. However, during the interview, we learned a secret - because of this, all natural dyes match well with each other. In contrast, synthetic dyes would appear garish.
Miss Leong’s interview was incredibly helpful, yet our task ahead has become even more difficult, because we now have to consider the problem on a more visceral, aesthetic level. But we believe that makes our problem all the more worthwhile to solve.
Mr. Vinod Agnihotri
Mr Vinod Agnihotri manages LANXESS operations in Singapore, as well as its Material Protection Products Business Unit for the Asia Pacific region. While LANXESS is no longer involved in textile dye production, Mr Agnihotri himself has a degree in Chemistry, and another in Textile Chemistry and Fibre Technology. As Singapore does not have a textile industry, we felt very fortunate to have found such an expert.
We started the interview by discussing fashion’s environmental impact. Once again, we were told that the textile and dye industries were not environmentally-friendly in all aspects. He confirmed our problem statement by identifying the most pollutive part of fashion - the production of the dye itself. The water quality of water bodies near dye factories are an especially big concern, and the pollutive impact of the chemicals depends on the method of production and the yield.
After hearing what we planned to do to solve this, Mr Agnihotri told us that to be competitive, our dyes need to achieve industry fastness levels, and we have to produce many shades with high reproducibility, while remaining economic. In short, while natural dyes could be relatively better for the environment compared to synthetic dyes, our natural dyes still need to meet performance criteria demanded by consumers.
To wrap up our interview, we went through the perceptions of different stakeholders. Firstly, as consumers are getting more savvy, there is a growing demand for higher-quality, less pollutive dyes. Secondly, he pointed out that the educated layman, as a consumer, may be repulsed by the idea of bacteria having previously been in the dye, even if we claim that all the bacteria has been removed from the dye. This was valuable to us because our team initially believed that consumers and designers would be more interested in our dyes if they knew it had been made using synthetic biology. It indicates that our next step for Human Practices should be to find out how many other people share his opinion. Thirdly, eco-friendly dyes are something chemical companies would welcome, because the average consumer associates “chemical” with “harmful”. Lastly, he suggested that to become commercially successful, we could collaborate with prominent brands in the fashion industry who are willing to experiment with natural dyes.
Ms. Angelene Wong
In Progress
Dr. Nic Lindley
In Progress
Dr. Yvonne Chow
In Progress
HEAR OUR STORY
We’re using synthetic biology to change the way the world thinks and functions.
We’re a little disruptive, dangerous and maybe a tad too bold. But the world needs some shaking up every now and then, and we think we’re just the right people for that.
Together we’re going to engineer biology and create something awesome.
CONTACT US
nusigem@gmail.com21 Lower Kent Ridge Rd, Singapore 119077