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  • WHERE I WORK

The greener route to indigo blue

Tammy Hsu is finding a way to produce fabric dye with a lower environmental impact.
  1. James Mitchell Crow

    1. James Mitchell Crow is a freelance writer in Melbourne, Australia.

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Tammy Hsu, chief scientific officer of Huue, in her laboratory to develop natural denim dyes.

Tammy Hsu is chief scientific officer and co-founder of Huue in Berkeley, California. Credit: Helynn Ospina for Nature

My work focuses on creating clean colour. Many conventional fabric dyes are made using unsustainable processes. Indigo dye, for example, is usually made from petroleum-derived aniline in a high-temperature process that involves formaldehyde and cyanide. Globally, around 20% of industrial water pollution comes from fabric dyeing.

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Nature 599, 524 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-03437-y

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