Synthetic biology offers new capabilities for creating novel materials and compounds
Conagen innovates and develops synthetic biology solutions for supporting global partners across a spectrum of current and developing markets. To scale the development of organisms for its partners, the US-based company factors in the importance of time and efficiency by leveraging its advanced laboratory robotics and automation. Conagen’s discovery and development methods foster sustainability and improve efficiency—from lab to world scale. SVP of Innovation Casey Lippmeier speaks to Fibre2Fashion on how bioengineering and synthetic biology is expected to transform most global industries, including textiles.
How is bioengineering transforming the world of textiles?
Bioengineering and synthetic biology are creating sustainable versions of many petrochemicals used in the manufacturing of cloth, dyes, adhesives, and other textile industry materials.
What are some of the products Conagen manufactures for the textile industry?
Conagen is just getting started in this space, but so far, we have created the textile dye Tyrian purple and a debondable adhesive, which should improve the recyclability of certain clothes and accessories.
How are these different from other similar products available in the market?
Tyrian purple is not widely available in the market, as it is the colour of ancient royalty. It used to be extracted from a special gland of the Murex snail, which grows on the Mediterranean coast. We are now making this dye in fermenters and democratising its use. Conagen’s debondable adhesives, applicable to the textile industry and other industries, are performing as well or better than existing adhesives. Furthermore, we can tune the temperature at which it debonds, enabling much easier textile recycling in a way that is not achievable with current offerings.
Which are your major markets for textile products?
As this is still a new area for Conagen, we are actively seeking partners. However, we anticipate that our announced products and many others still in development could touch every major textile products market – from handbags to shoes to athletic wear and everyday wardrobes.
What are the major applications?
Today we have only dyes and adhesives. Tomorrow we will have many others.
What new innovations are you working on for the textile and apparel realms?
Every petrochemical used in textiles is a target – synthetic fibres, foam paddings, stitching, plastic buttons, printed inks, and more.
Is it possible to scale the production of Conagen bioengineering for the global textile and apparel industry?
Conagen and other synthetic biology companies have already scaled their technologies to supply various food ingredients – some of the largest markets by volume. Applying this technology to supply material for the textile industry should prove to be analogous.
What are the future plans at Conagen with respect to applications for textiles and technical textiles?
Conagen is keen to identify and understand the textile industry’s sustainability goals better and to hear more about the trends and opportunities that the industry is working to capture. Synthetic biology offers new capabilities for creating novel materials and compounds that will be useful to most global industries, including textiles.
Interviewer: Shilpi Panjabi
Published on: 16/03/2023
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
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