Bacterial Cellulose and Colour - PROCESS VIDEOS

As environmental awareness and public concern regarding pollution increase, the combination of natural dyes and bacterial cellulose can produce an attractive new material for the textile industry.

To dye bioplastics I am using mineral pigments and they work very successfully. I thought I will try them with bacterial cellulose as well.

Mineral pigments did not work on cellulose at all.

Ultramarine pigment bleached the cellulose and the pigment itself dissolved completely over night. Can it be the reaction to the sulphur that is used to obtain the ultramarine colour?
Further research needed on that.

The coral green mineral pigment gave a very subtle colour which almost disappeared in drying process.

Natural red cabbage dye and spirulina extract worked much better.

As it is obvious in the video, both dyes resulted in vibrant colours. The colour did not change even after drying.
However, the material after drying was just too fragile. The structure reminded of paper. Did it need more time to grow? Strange, because The cellulose was forming for 21 days.

Further developments with this material will be discussed in the next post.