microbial textile

disruption

samelab is working with “The Wild yeast zoo” at Newcastle university to identify microbes in the environment with the ability to digest lanolin or produce natural detergents that can aid in its removal from wool.

The Australian wool industry exports the majority of the wool produced as raw wool to China where looser environmental regulations and cheap labor allow for processing to take place at low monetary cost but high environmental cost.

The limited amount of wool scouring facilities globally also creates a bottle-neck for the production of woollen garments. Other facilities such as spinning and dying factories can also be used for plant derived natural fibres but wool scouring is unique to animal fibre.

early stage wool processing describes the removal of suint, organic material and lanolin from raw or greasy wool. Typically done using harsh detergents that create difficult to degrade effluent, can we collaborate with microbes to reduce the environmental impact of global textile production. A Living-tech disruption to the natural fibre supply chain.

Removing suint and lanolin close to the farm using a microbial process has the advance of reducing wool weight by up to 30% when it is transported which reduces emissions and almost entirely cancels out the extra costs of processing the wool domestically.

in the future microbial wool cleaning could be integrated with bacterial dying techniques and Microbial protein generated through cultures used in the wool cleaning process have the potential for use in regenerative farming practices and a variety of other potential applications.

Once target microbes are identified we will work on building a system that allow the removal of lanolin as close to the farm as possible to minimise transport related emissions.

Themes:

microbial collabs

Industry disruptors

ethical textiles