AgResearch: Engaging in the international textile community with the SDC

Senior scientist Dr Steve McNeil of the Bioproduct and Fibre Technology Team at New Zealand-based AgResearch joins us to talk about their exciting work to evolve wool, flax and hemp products for global markets – and how being an SDC member has benefits all round.

Thanks for taking the time out to answer our questions, Steve! To start with, when did AgResearch become a company member of SDC, and what were the reasons for applying?

We joined the SDC in 2015, so seven years ago now. The catalyst was a brief visit to us by technical director, Andrew Filarowski, who was in the country on other business. He reminded us of the breadth of the SDC’s work, from test materials, books, and the academic journal, to its education and networking opportunities. This is important work that we wanted to support, and we could see that membership of the SDC would help us re-engage with the international textile community – particularly for our textile chemistry researchers.

How has this relationship grown since 2015?

The SDC’s networking opportunities have led to some great collaborations with other members, and the society helped to promote our International Virtu-Wool textile conferences. We are in the early stages of planning the next one!

When we are able to share our work, the SDC’s journal, ‘Coloration Technology’ is our often our first choice. Undergoing the robust scrutiny by the journal’s expert reviewers is challenging, but worthwhile, and the journal’s high standards are becoming increasingly rare in academic publishing.

Recently, we have had material published on the scouring of raw wool with plant derived surfactants, radical-enhanced disperse dyeing of wool, and the reuse of spent dyebaths following de-colorisation, with ozone.

Please tell us more about your team’s core operations.

We are focused on the processing and products of three natural fibres – wool, harakeke – aka phormium tenax, New Zealand flax – and hemp.

As most of New Zealand’s fibre is exported, we work for clients around the world, to keep products desirable to international processors and consumers.

In achieving this, our team of scientists, engineers and textile technologists bring together skills in textile chemistry, textile engineering, materials science and chemical engineering.

We are part of AgResearch, the New Zealand Government’s largest research institute. Our approximate 850 staff, are spread throughout the country across 13 locations. United in our organisational purpose to enhance the value of New Zealand’s agricultural sector value chains.

How does colour come into this?

Some of our team’s research involves colour. For instance, applying colour by novel dyeing or printing techniques, or monitoring how colour changes during washing or long-term exposure to light.

Colour is a key factor in setting the price of natural fibres. We are sometimes involved in research on the measurement and communication of the colour of unscoured and scoured wool.

Previous research led to commercialised technologies centred on colour, such as enhanced raw wool scouring, preventing photo-yellowing, rapid-dyeing, wool carpet piece dyeing, and novel coloration effects.

What are your colour aspirations for the future?

There are several areas of colour we want to start or continue to work in. A great example of this would be our interest in natural dyes from local horticultural by-products – such as grape marc and kiwi fruit skins.

Disperse dyes on wool to impart bright colours for sportswear, enhancing the aggregation of dyes in fibres for greater lightfastness, and designing carpets to provide visual cues that enhance gait and compensate for ageing vision are also topics we would love to give our attention to.

In addition to these textile areas, we are working on aerogels made from solubilised wool and other proteins. Their extremely high surface areas and porosities offer some intriguing visual properties that we hope to explore in more depth.

Thanks Steve for this fascinating insight!

Do you work for an SDC company member? Would you like to have your work showcased in this way? If so please email members@sdc.org.uk. 

A longer version of this interview features in the September issue of SDC members’ magazine The Colourist.