Meet the partners: Aalto University
Turning a promising biotechnology into a viable textile process requires more than producing the right molecule. It must work on real fibres, under realistic processing conditions, and deliver the colour, durability and reproducibility expected by the textile industry. This is where Aalto University plays a central role in GREENDIGO.
Based in Finland, Aalto University is a multidisciplinary research university bringing together science, engineering, business and the arts. Within its School of Chemical Engineering, the Textile Chemistry group develops sustainable technologies for textile coloration, functionalisation and recycling. In GREENDIGO, Aalto leads Work Package 3 on enzymatic textile dyeing and printing, bridging the project’s biotechnology with textile engineering and translating its bio-based indigo concept into practical processes for cellulosic textiles.
The Aalto team is led by Dr. Ali Tehrani, Professor of Textile Chemistry in the Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems. His research combines sustainable textile coloration and functionalisation, fibre and surface chemistry, circular textile processing, and close collaboration with industry. In GREENDIGO, he leads the work to transform the precursor and enzyme systems developed by the consortium into dyeing and printing processes that can ultimately meet industrial requirements.
He is joined by Dr. Mohammad Mahdavian, Project Specialist, who supports the experimental development and optimisation of GREENDIGO’s dyeing and printing processes. His work covers precursor adsorption and in situ conversion on cellulosic textiles, formulation and process optimisation, dye fixation and fastness, and both batch and continuous laboratory trials. Saara Siekkinen, Doctoral Researcher, works on developing and optimising enzymatic dyeing and printing, with particular attention to precursor adsorption, in-situ formation of indigo, colour performance and fastness, and the transition from batch experiments toward continuous processing.
Aalto’s main expectation from GREENDIGO is to demonstrate that the project’s biotechnology can be translated into robust, reproducible and industry-relevant textile processes. Producing a bio-based indigo precursor is only part of the challenge. The resulting system must also generate the shades expected from denim, withstand washing and wear, perform consistently across textile substrates, and eventually work in continuous processing environments like those used by industry. Together with the rest of the consortium, the Aalto team therefore aims to achieve colour quality and fastness comparable to conventional indigo processes while generating the performance data needed for scale-up and Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) assessment.
At the centre of this work is the interaction between biology and the textile itself. The precursor must interact effectively with the fibre, while the enzymes need to operate under conditions that promote controlled in-situ formation of indigo at or within the textile substrate. Adsorption, diffusion, conversion, and fixation are interconnected, meaning that improving one part of the process cannot come at the expense of another. Understanding and controlling these interactions is one of Aalto’s main scientific challenges within GREENDIGO.
Printing introduces additional questions. Formulations must have the correct rheological properties, remain stable during processing, and behave predictably during deposition or inkjet printing. The challenge is therefore not simply to demonstrate that enzymatic colour formation is possible, but to develop processes capable of producing reproducible dyed and printed textiles while using a fundamentally different and potentially much lower-impact chemistry.
Aalto also provides an important feedback loop between the project’s different areas of research. Nordic Blue develops the indoxyl glycoside precursors, enzymes, and production processes upstream, while Aalto evaluates how these technologies perform when they meet actual textile fibres. Results from dyeing and printing trials can then feed directly back into precursor design, enzyme development, and process optimisation. At the same time, experimental data from Aalto support the safety and sustainability assessments carried out within GREENDIGO. This continuous interaction between precursor development, textile application, and sustainability assessment is one of the project’s central strengths.
GREENDIGO builds on Aalto’s long-standing expertise in textile coloration, fibre and surface chemistry, and sustainable processing. Earlier research has examined dye-fibre and dye-surfactant interactions, adsorption and dyeing kinetics and the treatment of coloured textile wastewater, all fundamental to understanding how GREENDIGO’s new precursors can be taken up, converted and retained by textile fibres.
GREENDIGO aims to replace chemical-intensive indigo dyeing with bio-based, enzyme-enabled alternatives while considering safety, life-cycle impacts, and planetary boundaries from the beginning of the development process. For Aalto, this makes the project a natural extension of its research into sustainable coloration, bio-based textile chemicals and circular textile technologies.
What excites the Aalto team most is the opportunity to follow an ambitious bio solution all the way from molecular and enzymatic development to a textile process that can be tested against real industrial requirements. GREENDIGO brings precursor synthesis, enzyme engineering, textile processing and sustainability assessment together within the same development cycle. As the upstream biotechnology advances, Aalto can provide rapid feedback from the textile level and help determine what needs to change for the system to perform in practice.
That connection between biotechnology and the textile itself is essential. A new route to indigo only becomes transformative when it can deliver the colour, quality, and durability that industry and consumers expect. In GREENDIGO, Aalto is helping turn the science of a new blue into a process that could ultimately work on the textile production line.
