British clothing company Vollebak aims to reinvent the way in which the colour black itself is made. And it all starts with the first t-shirt made with black algae. The algae grows in ponds using sunlight and carbon dioxide. Not only does algae generate more than half the oxygen on Earth, but once it becomes part of this t-shirt, it captures and stores the carbon it used as its fuel for the next 100 years. Together with the help of US biomaterials company Living Ink they have found a method to extract black ink from black algae waste. They have been experimenting with black algae ink by printing the entire outer surface of the t-shirt with it. This is the first time this has been attempted. Which is why the t-shirt is a really dark grey rather than jet black. The base material of the t-shirt is an untreated, beige coloured tree pulp. And it turns out that tree pulp and black algae make a very dark grey marl.
Sustainable ink from algae - Living Ink Technologies
