David Savastano, Editor08.28.19
When we think of printing inks, we think of the materials that help make packaging, publications and much more stand out. The blacks and colors that we see are derived from either pigments or dyes, and for the most part, are petrochemical-based.
Living Ink has a different approach altogether. A biomaterials company, Aurora, CO-based Living Ink has developed inks based on algae, a sustainable technology, to replace petroleum-derived products. With Algae Ink, Living Ink is commercializing environmentally-friendly black algae-based pigments that have a negative carbon footprint.
Living Ink was co-founded by Dr. Scott Fulbright and Dr. Stevan Albers when they were Ph.D. students in the Cell and Molecular Biology Program at Colorado State University. They were always thinking of technology advancements that could be potential business ideas, and were fascinated by the field of biofabrication, or using biology to grow materials. Literally while standing in the greeting card aisle, Fulbright thought about the fundamental components of ink.
“The question was asked, ‘Could we use entire algae cells as a pigment for biodegradable ink?’ Steve grew some algae up at his house and we made a basic screenprinting ink formulation and made a print. It looked amazingly vibrant, and the story of ‘gluing” algae cells on a piece of paper to communicate a message was a neat story,” said Fulbright, Living Ink’s CEO (Albers is the CTO).
Subsequently, they went through a variety of business accelerators and business pitch competitions. The company won several business pitches through the Department of Energy, Colorado State University and the University of Colorado. In 2017, the company won a National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation grant to develop bio-based pigments for ink.
Using sunlight, water and carbon dioxide, the algae is grown at large scale. Once the crude pigment is purified using proprietary technology, it is milled and formed into a dispersion, which then can be formulated into a variety of products including inks.
For years the company has been refining pigments, inks and doing customer discovery to understand which stakeholders in the supply chain value the novel innovation of using algae as ink. Fulbright noted that Living Ink has had several technology challenges that they have overcome over the years, including shelf life.
“A challenge that we had to overcome was shelf life,” he noted. “Basically, we innovated around this issue by refining the pigment into a purer form, while tweaking the ink formulation to keep pigments suspended in solution.”
Another challenge has been explaining what algae-based inks are to customers.
“One of the greatest challenges we have right now is that brands want to work with us because of the novel stories around negative carbon footprint, biorenewable content, and using biomaterials,” Fulbright said. “However, many brands don’t understand ink or deal with ink. For example, most brands work with converters who both understand ink/printing and work directly with ink companies.
“Thus, we have had to overcome/are overcoming this by partnering with preferred printers who understand and value reducing their environmental impact and differentiating from competitors,” he added. “They also see an opportunity of driving new business because of this novel eco-story and product. Lastly, we make an ink product that is very similar to other ink formulations, except that our algae-based pigment is 100% biorenewable compared to the traditional heavy petroleum-derived carbon black pigment. Thus, our ink is a ‘drop-in solution,’ meaning printers can treat our ink the same as any other in they use from start to finish.”
Of course, ink doesn’t only come in black. Living Ink has created color inks as well.
“We have developed several different colors of algae,” Fulbright observed. “We can use naturally occurring colored algae and we also develop specialty strains in our lab that have colors. The colors have real potential, but we only access what nature produces. Thus, certain tones and colors are difficult to match. Thus, we are focused on scaling up black since there seems to be significant interest.”
There are plenty of environmental benefits of using sustainable algae-based inks.
“For our black ink product, we produce a black pigment derived from algae compared to traditional petroleum-based carbon black pigment,” Fulbright noted. “Just looking at the pigment, our product is carbon negative. For example, a ton of Algae Ink is equivalent to removing over 3.5 million balloons of CO2 from the environment. In comparison, a ton of carbon black ink is equivalent to releasing over 8 million balloons full of pure CO2. Additionally, Algae Ink pigments are conducive to the environment. Farmers have actually added algae products onto their fields to enhance crop productivity.”
Fulbright said that the printers Living Ink has worked with so far have been wonderful partners.
“Several years ago, the first printer that adopted the technology was Colorado-based Ecoenclose,” Fulbright added. “I called them up a few years ago and their owner Kyle Wente said, ‘Come in here today and let’s print your algae ink.’ That was for a 250 box print job. Years later we are doing print jobs of hundreds of thousands of boxes and looking to grow. They have been amazing partners by allowing us to get our version 1.0 on their press.
“Since then, we have continued to work with Ecoenclose to improve ink and also started working with several large printers that have all given positive feedback,” he added. “They have had a lot of success with our ink products, while giving us productive feedback so we can continue to improve the Algae Ink products. We have found that not all printers are open-minded to trying out new products, thus we are starting to focus on a few eco-printers as partners. We have been very lucky to find printers such as Ecoenclose and D&K printing (both located in Colorado) who are open-minded and looking to innovate the future. These partners are the drivers of change and producing truly eco-friendly innovations.”
Ink companies are taking notice of Living Ink and its algae-based inks.
“We have had a lot of interest from the ink companies around the world. The European companies seem to be urgently looking for not only eco-solutions but safe options as EU regulations change in the coming years,” said Fulbright. “I think some companies think our products are very well timed in the sustainability trends of packaging and textiles, while others think we are futuristic. As to be expected, many of these companies are looking for products and stories that can differentiate them from other companies. Transforming algae into ink is one of those unique stories that are interesting and can scale.
“We are excited to find an ink partner to work with closely, where we can sell a pigment dispersion to them and let them do downstream formulation works,” he added. “One challenge we have seen as a startup is that many customers want many different types of ink for various printers, substrates, applications, etc. We don’t have the bandwidth to produce thousands of products, thus we believe working with an ink company will be integral to successfully scaling and making an impact.
In addition to Algae Ink Living Ink is also researching other highly technical possibilities.
“As we dive deeper in the R&D, we are finding very interesting functional attributes that might be interesting to the ink community,” Fulbright noted.
Living Ink is developing a wide range of inks, including screen inks and offset inks. As an added benefit, the company combines its pigments with soy for a very high content BRC ink. Ultimately, Fulbright sees the potential for bio-based inks to have an impact; the key is spreading the story of the technology.
“As someone who hasn’t spent my entire career in ink, I think there is a missed opportunity for telling an eco-story with ink,” Fulbright observed. “I talk to brands and converters that only talk about soy oil in inks. In this fast-paced world of innovation, we are still telling the story of soy, which has been around for five decades. I think overall soy is a great advancement and good story, but there is definitely room for new technologies and stories. Telling a story with ink is challenging because many consumers/brands don’t understand ink, but when they realize the pigments are derived from petroleum they are open to making a change.
“We are excited to take on the challenge of educating brand and consumers about our ink storytelling tool. People seem to get excited when I show them a sample of one of our prints and they can actually touch the ink and feel algae cells that were grown with sunlight. With so many brands pledging to reach 100% sustainable packaging, we think Algae Ink is well-positioned to assist in these groups reaching their circular economy goals….while telling an interesting story.
“We are excited now because, after years of work, the company is selling products and scaling up products to meet customers’ volume demands,” Fulbright concluded. “Looking back, I find it fascinating that new ideas happen when you least expect it.”
Living Ink has a different approach altogether. A biomaterials company, Aurora, CO-based Living Ink has developed inks based on algae, a sustainable technology, to replace petroleum-derived products. With Algae Ink, Living Ink is commercializing environmentally-friendly black algae-based pigments that have a negative carbon footprint.
Living Ink was co-founded by Dr. Scott Fulbright and Dr. Stevan Albers when they were Ph.D. students in the Cell and Molecular Biology Program at Colorado State University. They were always thinking of technology advancements that could be potential business ideas, and were fascinated by the field of biofabrication, or using biology to grow materials. Literally while standing in the greeting card aisle, Fulbright thought about the fundamental components of ink.
“The question was asked, ‘Could we use entire algae cells as a pigment for biodegradable ink?’ Steve grew some algae up at his house and we made a basic screenprinting ink formulation and made a print. It looked amazingly vibrant, and the story of ‘gluing” algae cells on a piece of paper to communicate a message was a neat story,” said Fulbright, Living Ink’s CEO (Albers is the CTO).
Subsequently, they went through a variety of business accelerators and business pitch competitions. The company won several business pitches through the Department of Energy, Colorado State University and the University of Colorado. In 2017, the company won a National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation grant to develop bio-based pigments for ink.
Using sunlight, water and carbon dioxide, the algae is grown at large scale. Once the crude pigment is purified using proprietary technology, it is milled and formed into a dispersion, which then can be formulated into a variety of products including inks.
For years the company has been refining pigments, inks and doing customer discovery to understand which stakeholders in the supply chain value the novel innovation of using algae as ink. Fulbright noted that Living Ink has had several technology challenges that they have overcome over the years, including shelf life.
“A challenge that we had to overcome was shelf life,” he noted. “Basically, we innovated around this issue by refining the pigment into a purer form, while tweaking the ink formulation to keep pigments suspended in solution.”
Another challenge has been explaining what algae-based inks are to customers.
“One of the greatest challenges we have right now is that brands want to work with us because of the novel stories around negative carbon footprint, biorenewable content, and using biomaterials,” Fulbright said. “However, many brands don’t understand ink or deal with ink. For example, most brands work with converters who both understand ink/printing and work directly with ink companies.
“Thus, we have had to overcome/are overcoming this by partnering with preferred printers who understand and value reducing their environmental impact and differentiating from competitors,” he added. “They also see an opportunity of driving new business because of this novel eco-story and product. Lastly, we make an ink product that is very similar to other ink formulations, except that our algae-based pigment is 100% biorenewable compared to the traditional heavy petroleum-derived carbon black pigment. Thus, our ink is a ‘drop-in solution,’ meaning printers can treat our ink the same as any other in they use from start to finish.”
Of course, ink doesn’t only come in black. Living Ink has created color inks as well.
“We have developed several different colors of algae,” Fulbright observed. “We can use naturally occurring colored algae and we also develop specialty strains in our lab that have colors. The colors have real potential, but we only access what nature produces. Thus, certain tones and colors are difficult to match. Thus, we are focused on scaling up black since there seems to be significant interest.”
There are plenty of environmental benefits of using sustainable algae-based inks.
“For our black ink product, we produce a black pigment derived from algae compared to traditional petroleum-based carbon black pigment,” Fulbright noted. “Just looking at the pigment, our product is carbon negative. For example, a ton of Algae Ink is equivalent to removing over 3.5 million balloons of CO2 from the environment. In comparison, a ton of carbon black ink is equivalent to releasing over 8 million balloons full of pure CO2. Additionally, Algae Ink pigments are conducive to the environment. Farmers have actually added algae products onto their fields to enhance crop productivity.”
Fulbright said that the printers Living Ink has worked with so far have been wonderful partners.
“Several years ago, the first printer that adopted the technology was Colorado-based Ecoenclose,” Fulbright added. “I called them up a few years ago and their owner Kyle Wente said, ‘Come in here today and let’s print your algae ink.’ That was for a 250 box print job. Years later we are doing print jobs of hundreds of thousands of boxes and looking to grow. They have been amazing partners by allowing us to get our version 1.0 on their press.
“Since then, we have continued to work with Ecoenclose to improve ink and also started working with several large printers that have all given positive feedback,” he added. “They have had a lot of success with our ink products, while giving us productive feedback so we can continue to improve the Algae Ink products. We have found that not all printers are open-minded to trying out new products, thus we are starting to focus on a few eco-printers as partners. We have been very lucky to find printers such as Ecoenclose and D&K printing (both located in Colorado) who are open-minded and looking to innovate the future. These partners are the drivers of change and producing truly eco-friendly innovations.”
Ink companies are taking notice of Living Ink and its algae-based inks.
“We have had a lot of interest from the ink companies around the world. The European companies seem to be urgently looking for not only eco-solutions but safe options as EU regulations change in the coming years,” said Fulbright. “I think some companies think our products are very well timed in the sustainability trends of packaging and textiles, while others think we are futuristic. As to be expected, many of these companies are looking for products and stories that can differentiate them from other companies. Transforming algae into ink is one of those unique stories that are interesting and can scale.
“We are excited to find an ink partner to work with closely, where we can sell a pigment dispersion to them and let them do downstream formulation works,” he added. “One challenge we have seen as a startup is that many customers want many different types of ink for various printers, substrates, applications, etc. We don’t have the bandwidth to produce thousands of products, thus we believe working with an ink company will be integral to successfully scaling and making an impact.
In addition to Algae Ink Living Ink is also researching other highly technical possibilities.
“As we dive deeper in the R&D, we are finding very interesting functional attributes that might be interesting to the ink community,” Fulbright noted.
Living Ink is developing a wide range of inks, including screen inks and offset inks. As an added benefit, the company combines its pigments with soy for a very high content BRC ink. Ultimately, Fulbright sees the potential for bio-based inks to have an impact; the key is spreading the story of the technology.
“As someone who hasn’t spent my entire career in ink, I think there is a missed opportunity for telling an eco-story with ink,” Fulbright observed. “I talk to brands and converters that only talk about soy oil in inks. In this fast-paced world of innovation, we are still telling the story of soy, which has been around for five decades. I think overall soy is a great advancement and good story, but there is definitely room for new technologies and stories. Telling a story with ink is challenging because many consumers/brands don’t understand ink, but when they realize the pigments are derived from petroleum they are open to making a change.
“We are excited to take on the challenge of educating brand and consumers about our ink storytelling tool. People seem to get excited when I show them a sample of one of our prints and they can actually touch the ink and feel algae cells that were grown with sunlight. With so many brands pledging to reach 100% sustainable packaging, we think Algae Ink is well-positioned to assist in these groups reaching their circular economy goals….while telling an interesting story.
“We are excited now because, after years of work, the company is selling products and scaling up products to meet customers’ volume demands,” Fulbright concluded. “Looking back, I find it fascinating that new ideas happen when you least expect it.”