Sustainable Microbial Pigments

Long description

Naturally occurring pigments from microbial sources have been used traditionally but were ignored by the fashion industry because of their inferior performance, restricted colour palette and higher cost as compared to the synthetic dyes. However, regenerative agriculture, innovative extraction and cultivation techniques can be utilized to get through these obstacles and help in their comeback to the industry at a large scale. We are proposing red pigment production by naturally occurring unmodified coloured microbes including fungi for use in the textile industry. Creation of colours as done by nature through fermentation of non-pathogenic fungi on agri-waste based media has proven to produce coloured pigments that have bioactivities such as antimicrobial, antioxidant, anticancer and other in a sustainable way. The pigment is extracted from the broth via solvents that can be recovered and reused for the next cycle while the mycelia/ waste can be safely discarded. At the laboratory scale, we have utilized two non-pathogenic and non-invasive strains of endophytic fungi (fungi that grows inside the plants without causing any visible harm to it) namely, Talaromyces and Monascus to obtain red pigments. Optimization of various growth media provided maximum amount of extracellular red pigment for commercial application. These pigments were found to exhibit good antibacterial and antifungal activities against the tested pathogenic bacteria and fungi with high antioxidant activities against free radicals. Furthermore, they were successfully tested for dyeing cotton clothes and are currently being upscaled.

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