Portuguese technological centre CITEVE has developed patent-pending textile printing pastes containing more than 94% bio-based content, turning waste from industrial, food and agricultural sources into an alternative to petroleum-based printing formulations.
The technology was developed with Portugal’s Centre for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials (CeNTI) and home-textile manufacturer Lameirinho Indústria Têxtil. The project, “Fully biobased textile printing pastes: Waste into resources”, won the Techtextil Innovation Award 2026 in the New Chemicals & Dyes category. Read Here
The development targets a key challenge in textile printing, where conventional pastes can depend on petrochemical-derived thickeners, binders and other raw materials. CITEVE’s formulations instead use biopolymers including collagen and chitosan, obtained from food-industry by-products, to provide binding and thickening functions.
The project also converts agricultural and industrial residues into colour pigments. Vine prunings, pine bark and ash from biomass boilers are subjected to fine mechanical grinding, or micronisation, producing particles smaller than 45 micrometres. This particle size allows the pigments to be incorporated into rotary screen printing, a widely used industrial textile-printing process.
Also Read: TANATEX Debuts 6-Product Fluorine-Free Water Repellency Concept
The use of waste-derived inputs gives the technology a broader circular-economy dimension. Rather than treating residues from agriculture, forestry, food production and biomass energy generation as waste, the project seeks to convert them into functional materials for textile manufacturing.
CITEVE said the pastes are both bio-based and water-based, offering an alternative to petroleum-derived formulations while maintaining the requirements of industrial textile printing. The formulations were successfully applied in rotary printing, with Lameirinho reporting high print quality and technical performance in textile products.
Augusta Silva, CITEVE’s innovation manager for textile printing and coating, said the technology combines environmentally friendly formulations with industrial applicability. The award, she added, validates the research behind the development.
The industrial compatibility of the technology could be important for textile manufacturers because the use of existing rotary screen-printing equipment can reduce the need for major changes to production infrastructure. That could make adoption easier compared with solutions requiring completely new printing systems.
The innovation was presented internationally at Techtextil 2026 in Frankfurt, where CITEVE showcased the bio-based pastes alongside examples of printed textile products. The recognition placed Portuguese development among technologies selected by the Techtextil Innovation Award jury for their potential to address challenges across the textile production chain.
CITEVE said the work forms part of the wider Bioeconomy at Textiles initiative, known as the be@t project, which brings together technical, scientific and industrial expertise to support the transition toward bio-based and circular textile production.
For the global textile industry, the development highlights a growing shift from simply recycling finished textile products toward replacing fossil-based inputs used during manufacturing. By combining waste-derived pigments, food-industry biopolymers and water-based chemistry with an established printing process, the CITEVE-led project offers a potential pathway for reducing the textile sector’s dependence on petrochemical raw materials while creating new uses for industrial and agricultural residues.