Jute waste may cut Bangladesh’s import bill as researchers make ink, graphene

• A team of Bangladeshi researchers have found a way to transform agricultural waste into environment-friendly printing ink, which could reduce Bangladesh’s dependence on imported industrial materials.
• The country currently imports nearly all its printing ink as its annual domestic market is worth around $245 million; a jute-based ink could reduce production costs by up to 10 times, the study suggests.
• The innovation also uses a greener production process that recycles hazardous gases generated during biomass pyrolysis.
• Beyond printing ink, researchers have also developed graphene from jute sticks, raising hopes that Bangladesh could enter the growing global market for nanomaterials.

Bangladesh is the world’s second-largest producer and the top exporter of jute. The “golden fiber” is so abundant here that, in rural regions, piles of dried jute sticks are commonly burned as cooking fuel or used as low-cost fencing.

Scientists have now found a way for this agricultural waste to become an unlikely solution to one of Bangladesh’s overlooked industrial dependencies — imported printing ink.

A Bangladeshi-led research team has developed environmentally friendly ink using submicron carbon particles derived from discarded jute sticks. This is a potential low-cost alternative to imported commercial black ink. The innovation could help Bangladesh reduce import dependence in a market worth millions of dollars annually while creating new economic value from agricultural waste.

The research, published in Chemistry: An Asian Journal in 2022, was led by Md Abdul Aziz, a Bangladeshi scientist at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Saudi Arabia.

“We are trying to convert low-value biomass into advanced industrial materials,” Aziz told Mongabay. “But when we tried it with jute sticks, we were surprised. We have obtained better-quality ink from jute sticks, and it can reduce the cost by about 10 times compared with the import cost.”

“Bangladesh produces huge amounts of jute sticks every year,” he said, and referred to the country’s raw jute production sometimes reaching 9 million bales (1.6 million tons) annually. “Instead of treating them as waste, they can become raw materials for sustainable technologies.”

An expensive ink import market

Bangladesh’s printing and packaging industries are almost entirely dependent on imported ink despite the country’s rapidly expanding manufacturing and publishing sectors.

The Printing Industries Association of Bangladesh in Dhaka estimated that Bangladesh’s annual ink market is worth around 30 billion takas (around $245 million), covering newspaper printing, packaging, publishing, office printing and pen manufacturing. Most inks and raw materials are imported from China, Japan, Germany, South Korea and the Netherlands.

The association said that, in Bangladesh, approximately 15,000 printing presses consume nearly 20 billion takas (around $163 million) worth of imported ink annually. Another 8.5 billion takas (around $70 million) worth of printer ink is imported every year for laser and inkjet printers while the pen industry imports additional specialized ink materials.

Despite growing demand, Bangladesh has almost no domestic industrial base for producing high-quality carbon-based ink materials.

Jute to ink: The process

In the 2022 study experiments, the researchers pyrolyzed jute sticks using a customized pilot furnace that recycled the hazardous gases generated during the process and reused them as fuel, reducing environmental emissions.

The resulting carbon material was then ball-milled into submicron particles averaging around 250 nanometers in size. These particles were dispersed into a water-based solution containing biocompatible ethylene glycol and isopropyl alcohol to produce printable ink.

The team tested the ink using a Canon printer, which showed the developed ink produced printing performance similar to commercial black inkjet ink. UV-Vis spectroscopy tests (to measure the amount of ultraviolet and visible light a sample absorbs or transmits) also found comparable blackness and light transmittance between the jute-derived ink and imported commercial ink.

The study shows that the developed ink is stable and gives similar printing performance over long periods.

Greener than conventional carbon black

The ink innovation also targets another growing concern — the environmental footprint of conventional ink production. The commercial black printing ink largely depends on carbon black, a petroleum-derived material produced through energy-intensive industrial processes that generate significant greenhouse gas emissions. Aziz’s team say that biomass-derived carbon from renewable agricultural waste offers a more sustainable alternative.

The study notes that conventional biomass pyrolysis can release hazardous gases such as methane, carbon monoxide and hydrogen. To reduce emissions, the research team designed its pilot furnace to recycle and burn those gases during production rather than release them into the atmosphere.

Aziz said that the technology is part of a broader movement toward green industrial chemistry by using renewable biomass instead of fossil-based raw materials.

“The development can be considered an environmentally friendly green technology,” he said. “Most of the conventional furnaces emit these harmful gases into the environment. Therefore, when a plant converts these generated gases into relatively less harmful end products such as carbon dioxide and water by using them as fuel during pyrolysis, it would be a smart way to protect the environment.”

Regarding the initial project of making ink from jute sticks, Aziz said, “Bangladesh is a suitable place for extracting ink from jute sticks. Here, when jute is crushed, all harmful substances are removed from the jute. Therefore, the best quality printing ink is obtained from jute. For this, it is possible to produce this ink very easily by purchasing a good quality ball milling machine.”

“If a company tries to make printing ink from jute sticks, the cost of producing the ink will be about 10 times lower than imported ink,” he added.

The dream of an expensive graphene

Aziz’s research team say this also gives hope in the field of an expensive material — graphene. Another 2022 study that Aziz was involved in shows that jute sticks can become a source of advanced functional materials.

Graphene, discovered in 2004, is considered one of the most promising materials of the 21st century. It is made of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice and is known for its exceptional electrical conductivity, strength, flexibility and thermal performance.

The researchers of the latter study first converted powdered jute sticks into activated carbon nanosheets before heating the material to around 2,700 degrees Celsius (4,892 degrees Fahrenheit) under inert conditions. The result was a three-dimensional interconnected graphene framework with high purity, low defect intensity, and strong structural stability.

Industries worldwide are looking into commercializing graphene for use in batteries, semiconductors, conductive inks, medical devices, aerospace materials, water purification systems, flexible electronics and high-speed communication technologies.

But producing graphene at industrial scales remains expensive and technically challenging. Industry estimates suggest the graphene market could grow from approximately $1.65 billion in 2025 to more than $9 billion by 2030, driven largely by electronics, telecommunications, aerospace, energy storage and semiconductor applications.

“I believe Bangladesh may hold an unexpected advantage of abundant biomass [in jute],” Aziz said. “The global graphene market is expanding rapidly as governments and corporations invest heavily in advanced materials and semiconductor-related technologies. Where the Bangladesh government could take the great chance.”

This story was published on Mongabay