Funds for Swedish University digital ink project

A proposal from Chalmers University of technology, Sweden has been granted funding on the basis of its innovative application for on/off dyeing by inkjet printing and its potential to influence new design and business models in the future. The project fits well into the holistic and systemic approach of the Mistra Future Fashion programme, which is a research programme on circular economy and serves for a future positive fashion industry and has relevance for the ongoing research.

Fall 2016 Mistra Future Fashion had an open call for new ideas that contribute to a systemic change of the fashion industry, making it circular and more sustainable. Key prioritised areas were ‘Digitalisation’, ‘Implementation’ and ‘Scale-up of Services’. Many applications were submitted covering wide spread of ideas relevant for the textile and fashion value chain and sent from many different continents. It was a proposal on on/off dyeing from Chalmers that got granted and is now currently being integrated into the research programme.

The project involves both inkjet-dyeing, with a certain pigment, and the specific garment can be de-coloured with this specific technology. Fast fashion cycles and customisation put a high stress on flexibility of raw materials, contradicting however with the demand for extended material life times by reuse and recycling. This project aims at developing a jet-able ink that can be removed on-demand. The ink will be developed in order to be jetted by domestic inkjet-printer, using surfactant technology which is based on commercially available systems.