Fungal Pigments: Potential Coloring Compounds for Wide Ranging Applications in Textile Dyeing

Abstract

Synthetic pigments/non-renewable coloring sources used normally in the textile industry release toxic substances into the environment, causing perilous ecological challenges. To be safer from such challenges of synthetic colorants, academia and industries have explored the use of natural colorants such as microbial pigments. Such explorations have created a fervent interest among textile stakeholders to undertake the dyeing of textile fabrics, especially with fungal pigments. The biodegradable and sustainable production of natural colorants from fungal sources stand as being comparatively advantageous to synthetic dyes. The prospective scope of fungal pigments has emerged in the opening of many new avenues in textile colorants for wide ranging applications. Applying the biotechnological processes, fungal pigments like carotenoids, melanins, flavins, phenazines, quinones, monascins, violacein, indigo, etc. could be extracted on an industrial scale. This review appraises the studies and applications of various fungal pigments in dyeing textile fabrics and is furthermore shedding light on the importance of toxicity testing, genetic manipulations of fungal pigments, and their future perspectives under biotechnological approaches.

Patents on Endophytic Fungi for Agriculture and Bio- and Phytoremediation Applications

“…Considering the abundance of endophytic fungi under study, the development of patentable applications like those reviewed here, and other applications still unexplored like fungal pigments [ 210 ], has become a prominent research area for this class of microorganisms.…”

Melanins as Sustainable Resources for Advanced Biotechnological Applications

“…There is also significant potential for melanins as sustainably sourced feedstocks/materials for technical applications, for example, as coatings, [ 37 ] as dyes for textiles, [ 624,632–636 ] for application in environmental remediation (e.g., heavy metal, nuclear contamination/waste, etc. ), [ 629,637 ] and as sustainable components of electronic products (as emphasized in Figure 6) due to their sustainable nature and prospects for biodegradation at the end of their useful lifetime.…”

Production of natural colorants by liquid fermentation with Chlorociboria aeruginascens and Laetiporus sulphureus and prospective applications

“…Even more alarming is that their production and use often cause environmental hazards around the textile industry through the release of toxic substances, especially in developing countries. In order to improve environmental conditions and provide the prerequisites for a circular bio‐economy, research is needed to advance the industrial production of natural dyes [2].…”

“…The group of fungi holds great potential to exploit their natural dyes or pigments, which represent an interesting alternative to other natural sources [6]. These pigments exhibit several key properties, for example, colorfastness [2] and ecological production using agricultural by‐products, which contributes to a circular bioeconomy. Additionally, fungal dyes and pigments as secondary metabolites have an immense chemical variation.…”