Plant-Based Aluminum Dying Processes

We have only five years before 1.5 °C

Dutch design studio Loop Loop has achieved a notable breakthrough with its development of a plant-based aluminum dying process. The technique, an alternative to conventional petroleum-based options, has great implications for sustainable and environmentally friendly design practices which many architects and designers are pursuing.

Loop Loop's quest to develop a plant-based aluminum dying process involved extensive research, drawing on resources ranging from academic papers to AI-driven tools. The accomplishment is underlined by "four bio-based pigment solutions that can be applied to aluminum through anodizing." The bio-based pigments are delivered dyer's alkanet flowers, dyer's rocket flowers, madder root, and red onion.

Loop Loop's groundbreaking process is made open-source, encouraging the democratization of aluminum anodizing and expanding the sustainable implications of the plant-based process beyond mass production and to independent designers, makers, and small-scale manufacturers.