Supercritical CO₂ Dyeing: Promising Tech or Misguided Hype?
Regularly, our Secretary General Lutz Walter shares his insights and knowledge through his blogposts, covering a wide range of topics related to textile sustainability and innovation. Follow his blog to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges that the textile industry is facing today.
"Supercritical CO₂ dyeing is neither snake oil nor silver bullet. It’s a promising but niche technology, with real potential for certain use cases - but limited scalability today. Meanwhile, pragmatic, incremental improvements to existing processes may deliver far more impact, more quickly, and at lower cost."
In his latest blog post, our Secretary General Lutz Walter unpacks the recent hype around supercritical CO₂ dyeing, sparked by viral claims of a waterless breakthrough. Drawing on decades of industry insight, he highlights the reality behind the headlines: the technology isn’t new, isn’t fully water-free, and remains limited in scale due to high costs, energy use, and narrow fabric applicability.
