Casein fabric is soft and antibacterial and is already accepting pre-orders for milk protein T-shirts.
For every six liters of cow's milk produced, about a liter is not used and is discarded. It is difficult to call this use prudent: even unsuitable milk retains a lot of useful and valuable substances, and the Californian startup Mi Terro proposes to return them to circulation. The first notable development of the company was soft tissue, which is made from milk proteins.
The technological process of processing sour milk requires preliminary fermentation and removal of the film of fat accumulating at the surface. Then it is dehydrated, and the resulting powder is purified, retaining only casein - the fermentation product of the main milk protein caseinogen (in cow's milk it accounts for about 80% of all proteins). Pure dry casein is dissolved in a weak alkaline solution, from which it is fed to a spinning device to form fibers. They are washed with an acid solution to neutralize the alkali - and, finally, the finished threads are woven into fabric.
The first product made from “milk fabric” was the Limitless Milk Shirt. The developers report that they perfectly tolerate machine wash, stretch, are particularly soft, antibacterial, do not wrinkle and do not absorb moisture. In addition, the microscopic cavities that form during fabric production create additional insulation to keep sweat odor in check. For one T-shirt, casein is enough out of five glasses of milk that go to waste.
The developers claim that Limitless Milk Shirt T-shirts are "three times softer" made of regular cotton / © Mi Terro
To produce the first batch of Limitless Milk Shirt, the developers turned to crowdfunding. The necessary funds are collected through the Kickstarter platform, and for $ 35 invested they promise to send a T-shirt, the retail price of which will be about $ 60 in the future. Deliveries are promised to begin in January 2020.