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BharatTextile.com > Textile/Fashion Articles > Ingeo: Future of Fashion

Ingeo: Future of Fashion
by Rahul

Biotechnology is quietly playing a growing role in an apparel industry waking up to its customers' concerns about the environment and the country's reliance on the foreign oil used to make synthetic fabrics like polyester and nylon.

A recent fashion show at the recent World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing featured both ready-to-wear clothing and designer gowns -- including some made by top fashion designers Halston, Oscar de la Renta, Stephen Burrows, Heatherette, and Elisa Jimenez -- are made from a new fiber called Ingeo, made largely from genetically engineered corn.

Ingeo fiber - the first man-made fiber created from 100% annually renewable resources - not oil. It combines the performance of traditional synthetic fibers and the touch and feel of a natural material. And because it is derived entirely from natural sources, Ingeo fiber helps to reduce our dependence on limited fossil fuel resources such as oil, the increasing costs of which is currently being felt by the textile industry at large.

Ingeo is spun from polylactide (PLA), a compostable biopolymer made from dextrose corn sugar that is fermented in a biotech process.

The process to create Ingeo essentially "harvests" the carbon plants remove from the air during photosynthesis. So, instead of using carbon from limited petroleum sources to make the base polymer (as all other synthetic fibres do), Ingeo derives its carbon from an annually renewable resource, such as corn.

To make Ingeo, plant starches are broken down into natural plant sugars. The carbon and other elements in these natural sugars are then used to make a polymer, called NatureWorks(tm) PLA. The development and manufacturing of PLA polymer relies on basic fermentation and distillation as its core chemical process, followed by simple polymerization. Once the resin is converted into a fibre, it becomes Ingeo.

Ingeo combines the most desired physical characteristics of natural fibres, such as wool, cotton and silk with those of conventional, petroleum-based synthetics. In addition, the fibres have environmental benefits that result from using renewable resources as their origin, including reduced CO2 emissions and less fossil fuel usage than incumbent materials (estimated at up to 50 percent reduction).

At the end of their useful life, products made from Ingeo, will fully degrade in industrial compost systems, similar to cotton. Where composting is not an option, Ingeo is compatible with standard waste disposal systems including recycling, landfill and incineration.

Ingeo is ideally suited for use in a range of apparel, carpet, fibrefill, non-woven, furnishings and industrial applications.

Now, with more apparel manufacturers turning to Ingeo, more clothes on the rack will have gotten their start in a gene lab. Currently, more than 75 leading brand owners and manufacturers in each of these key segments are actively developing and introducing new products made from Ingeo.