Dyeing Processes

Nike and Adidas are beginning to make use of what they call a "revolutionary technology" for textile business — a carbon-based process that dyes polyester with no utilization of water or chemical compounds.

The technology, Nike says, can revolutionize textile production, whose poisonous impact comes mostly from dyeing and which relies on enormous amounts of liquid.

"you want to collaborate with progressive dye homes, textile producers and consumer attire brands to scale this technology and drive it throughout the business, " says Eric Sprunk, Nike’s vice-president of merchandising and item.

Adidas premiered clothes created using the method this past year and Nike simply exposed its first dedicated center in Taiwan. The apparatus is made by DyeCoo Textile techniques.

Listed here is how it operates. Co2 is placed under severe stress, which briefly converts it into a fluid that subsitute for liquid in dyeing textiles. Since it cools, the carbon converts back to a gaseous state, where 95 % from it could be recycled and made use of once more.

Without having the use of water, materials need not be dried out — hence saves 60 per cent of energy. In addition they dye 40 % faster.

And there's no have to add chemical substances to obtain the dye to adhere to clothes, as it is necessary whenever liquid could be the medium.

Launched in 2008, Netherlands-based structured DyeCoo is the planet's first provider of professional carbon-dyeing gear. The method was conceived some 25 years ago, but DyeCoo figured out how to make it cost-effectively. Introduced towards the market the entire year, it just dyes polyester; DyeCoo is working on broadening it to cotton alongside products.

Both Nike and IKEA tend to be people in DyeCoo through their capital raising arms.

Conventional textile dyeing is incredibly water and chemical-intensive: for each and every two weight of textiles dyed, 25-40 gallons of water is employed. Nike's contracted textile flowers take in about 3 billion gallons of liquid a year to process polyester and cotton for its products, and Nike it self utilizes 325 million gallons more.

Although Nike has-been known as a sustainabilty leader consistently, Greenpeace's "Dirty Laundry" report linked Nike and 13 various other major garments brands' companies to your launch of hazardous and hormone-disrupting chemicals into Chinese streams. Commercial waste water with a wide range of toxic chemical substances was being dumped into rivers in two of China's vital textile production zones.

Ever since then, Nike has partnered on a "bluefinder" tool, which directs companies to pre-screened, sustainable textile products (dye methods, detergents also procedure chemical compounds found in the production procedure).