All are petroleum-based products. Wheat gluten comes from a renewable resource, is competitively priced and has real potential to replace or be used in conjunction with commercial binders, the NU College of Human Resources and Family Sciences researcher said. Eighty percent of printed fabrics in the United States are made with pigment print paste, a mixture of pigment, binder and thickener. Worldwide, more than 9 billion yards of fabric are printed with the paste each year. Unlike dyes, which are absorbed into fibers, pigments can t stick to fibers.
Binders act like glue, sticking the pigment to the fabric.
Bed sheets are an example of a major use of fabrics made with pigment print paste, Hamilton said. In its raw form, gluten is not water soluble. If you take regular wheat flour and mix it with water, then wash it and wash it, what s left over is the gluten, Hamilton said. Gluten must be modified to improve its solubility. In initial tests Hamilton modified gluten by the same patented process paper printers use.