Avient, Coloro to Offer Sustainable Fiber Colorants for Dope-Dyeing

Avient Corporation and Coloro, a universal color system that decodes color as the human eye sees it, announced a new collaboration to offer dope-dyeing matches of Coloro colors to the global fashion textile market.

With this collaboration and recent Global Recycle Standard (GRS) certifications and bluesign® SYSTEM PARTNER achievements, Avient strengthens its ability to supply the global textile industry with top-quality specialized colorants for the dope-dyeing of synthetic fibers and help brands achieve sustainability goals.

When Coloro recently launched its unique color feasibility intelligence to the fashion and textile industry to illustrate achievable colors, it included Avient’s range of standard colorants to match its colors into the dope-dyeing process. Dope-dyeing, or spin-dyeing, is considered a more sustainable coloring process for fibers because it uses no water and requires less energy than the widely used bath-dyeing process.

The colorant is in the form of concentrate pellets added to the polymer pellets during the extrusion and melting process. The plastic mass is then shaped into filaments, spun, and texturized into an already-dyed yarn. No water is involved, and no wastewater is created, reducing the number of steps and, as a result, the amount of energy needed to add color.

“Major textile brands are under pressure to show how they will implement sustainability strategies to reduce CO2 emissions, water use, and wastewater,” said Bob Lee, general manager of Greater China, Color & Additives at Avient. “This is where dope-dyeing and Avient’s colorant technology, along with Coloro’s colors, can help. We’re excited to work together to help fashion brands and creatives determine which colors can be achieved in the dope-dyeing process, offering a faster, eco-conscious color selection.”

“As we now have over 300 well-known brands and retailers using our colors in the global supply chain, potentially creating millions of garments in Coloro colors, we see it as our responsibility to help them address and minimize emissions and pollution created through color application and processing,” said Detlev Pross, chief strategy officer of Coloro, Shanghai. “It was a natural and obvious choice to collaborate with Avient as a global leader in sustainable color and material solutions. We are grateful and excited that they immediately supported this project to help provide Coloro colors for dope-dyeing.” 

Avient and Coloro are currently offering 226 Coloro colors as standard colorants for dope-dyeing, with plans to expand in the future.