Publications by authors named "Sarath M Vega Gutierrez"

Wood-staining fungal pigments have shown potential use as colorants for wood and textiles, with organic solvents as the pigment carrier. Natural oils have been suggested as an environmentally friendly and more available carrier; however, oils promoted color degradation. The current study examined the mechanism of said degradation and tested therapeutic and food-grade oils (instead of finishing oils) for their potential to carry draconin red, the pigment from , without color loss over time.

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Spalting fungal pigments have shown potential in technologies ranging from green energy generation to natural colorants. However, their unknown toxicity has been a barrier to industrial adoption. In order to gain an understanding of the safety of the pigments, zebrafish embryos were exposed to multiple forms of liquid media and solvent-extracted pigments with concentrations of purified pigment ranging from 0 to 50 mM from and Purified xylindein from .

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Identification of effective natural dyes with the potential for low environmental impact has been a recent focus of the textile industry. Pigments derived from spalting fungi have previously shown promise as textile dyes; however, their use has required numerous organic solvents with human health implications. This research explored the possibility of using linseed oil as a carrier for the pigment from as a textile dye.

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Organic semiconductors are of interest for (opto)electronic applications due to their low cost, solution processability, and tunable properties. Recently, natural product-derived organic pigments attracted attention due to their extraordinary environmental stability and unexpectedly good optoelectronic performance, in spite of only partially conjugated molecular structure. Fungi-derived pigments are a naturally sourced, sustainable class of materials that are largely unexplored as organic semiconductor materials.

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Pigments from wood-decay fungi (specifically spalting fungi) have a long history of use in wood art, and have become relevant in modern science due to their longevity and colorfastness. They are presently under investigation as colorants for wood, bamboo, oils, paints and textiles. Major hurdles to their commercialization have been color repeatability (in that the same strain of the same species of fungus may produce different colors over time), and the binding of the pigments to glass storage containers.

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Intarsia was an art form popular between the 15th⁻18th centuries that used wood pigmented by spalting fungi to create detailed landscapes, portraits, and other imagery. These fungi are still used today in art but are also finding relevance in material science as elements of solar cells, textile dyes, and paint colorants. Here we show that the spalting fungus (Sacc.

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The use of both naturally occurring and synthetic pigmented wood has been prevalent in woodcraft for centuries. Modern manifestations generally involve either woodworkers' aniline dyes, or pigments derived from a special class of fungi known as spalting fungi. While fungal pigments are more renewable than anilines and pose less of an environmental risk, the carrier required for these pigments-dichloromethane (DCM)-is both problematic for humans and tends to only deposit the pigments on the surface of wood instead of evenly within the material.

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Pigments that are currently available in the market usually come from synthetic sources, or, if natural, often need mordants to bind to the target substrate. Recent research on the fungal pigment extracts from , , , and have been shown to successfully dye materials, like wood, bamboo, and textiles, however, there is no information about their binding mechanisms. Due to this, a microscopic study was performed to provide information to future manufacturers interested in these pigments.

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