Potential of New Plant Sources as Raw Materials for Obtaining Natural Pigments/Dyes

Abstract

Abstract: Natural dyes can be extracted from fruits, flowers, leaves, and roots. Exploring new sources of natural dyes, especially from underutilized plants, emerges as a promising strategy. The main advantages of exploiting unconventional plants include local availability, specialty food production, cultural significance, sustainable production, technological feasibility, and new fundamental insights. Finding and exploiting such underutilized plants is significant as unfavorable climatic and human conditions put natural vegetation at risk worldwide. Thus, this study aims to review plants with potential applications as natural dyes and pigments, highlighting their potential applications, benefits, and prospects. An integrative review was conducted by searching Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and SpringerLink for all studies published up to December 2024. For this review, a total of 133 references that presented the information and data of interest to the authors were selected. This review highlighted their potential applications in food, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and textile industries. Despite the growing interest in natural dyes, challenges related to their stability, seasonality, and extraction efficiency continue to limit their commercial use. However, advancements in extraction technologies have improved the applicability of these compounds. Additionally, utilizing underexplored plant sources presents a strategic opportunity to diversify dye production, reduce reliance on traditional sources, and promote more sustainable practices.