SUPERVISOR: Antje POTTHAST

PROJECT ASSIGNED TO: Ivan MELIKHOV

You don’t have to be a fan of Lana Del Ray to appreciate “blue jeans” and agree that they are pretty solid in time. But the question is: “What does really make them so stable?”

Indigo dye is widely used for producing “blue jeans” and related textiles. This compound is highly photostable and probably functions as UV blocker for cotton textiles. In addition there are samples of ancient indigo-dyed textiles that are well-preserved to our days. This was a motivation to start a more fundamental investigation on how dyes and their degradation products can affect stability of cellulosic materials. A number of state-or-the-art analytical tools will be applied to address changes in dye structure and cellulose integrity to better understand lignocellulose aging including the end-of-life of textiles in different environments.