Dyeing of Cotton Fibre using Marigold Flower as Dye

Abstract

The discovery methods of synthesizing alizanin and indigo spelt the death knell of the indigenous industry. Due to the ease of application, bright shades obtained and the hard shell of the colonial rulers, hand weavers started to opt for synthetic dyes without a clear understanding of the using of these. It is now suspected that many of the synthetic dyes are carcinogenic in nature and havoc in life systems. It's ironic that Europe that initiated the advent of synthetic dyes in the first place woke up the dangers of these agents and turning down for a few members of this class, proven to be harmful to life forms.

Flowers are available in Eastern India & are grown almost every season but a huge amount of unsold flowers are wasted everyday in West Bengal. It can be used in small scale Industry as well as in large scale Industry. These unsold flowers create a big problem for disposal as well as these can create environment pollution also. But these unsold flowers can be used for dyeing purpose for Textile & residuals can be used as bio-fertilizers also. These flower dyes are eco-friendly also and it has no side effect on skin. An attempt has been made in laboratory scale and in pilot plant also using some selected flowers like Mari-gold for dyeing of textile fibre to get a clear idea of preparation of dye from these flowers & using it in Textile Industry and making the process economically viable.

Keywords: Floral dye; Textile fibre; synthetic dye; Marigold Flower

Introduction:

Dyeing of textiles mean giving them a colour, which is of comparative permanence. It implies that it should not be possible to wash the colour out easily in laundering, nor should it fade rapidly when exposed to light. In Textile Coloration Industry, effluents of dyes & associated chemicals are source of water pollution. So, due to the harmful effect of chemical dye on environment pollution, a number of countries have issued stricter regulations so as to preserve our environment. Not only that, these synthetic dyes may create allergic reaction on skin also. For this reason, now the interest of natural dyestuffs has revived in Europe, Japan and United states. Indian Government has also banned some use of Azo group which has harmful effect on environment.

In India especially in West Bengal, a huge amount of flowers are wasted everyday. A survey report reveals that among India, West Bengal is in 4th position to cultivate flowers after Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka & Tamilnadu. 40% of the total product flowers are wasted everyday. These flowers are thrown in water of Ganga river or any other places which creates water pollution.

But these flowers can be used to extract dye which can be used as natural floral dye for colouring textile fibre. These natural dye are cost effective, eco-friendly & renewable and has no allergic action on skin. For our work we have taken cotton fabric and we choose Marigold flowers, China rose flowers for dyeing the fibre.

Chemistry & Characteristics of Cotton Fibre:

Cotton is one of the most commonly abundant natural fibre & it is advantageous textile as it is more available, comfort, excellent heat conductivity & hygroscopic in nature. It is natural fibre chemically known as cellulose. Pure cellulose is a white substance with specific gravity of 1.5. Cold water causes cotton to swell but has no chemical action on it. Many of the natural dye has not only carboxy group, but also have aromatic hydroxyl group to function as water soluble groups. These are hydrolyzed in water to anions & because the surface of cotton is also anionic in water, repulsive forces act between dyes & fibre surface & consequently dyes can’t be easily absorbed. So, for this reason cotton fabric is to be treated i.e. to be cationized so that ionic attraction between dye-anions & fibre cations can be occurred easily. It increases the capacity of dye ability.

Natural Floral Dye Characteristics:

For a substance to act as dye, certain condition must be fulfilled:-

1. It must have a suitable colour.
2. It must be able to fix or must be capable of being fixed to fabric.
3. It must not be fugitive after fixing on fabric to be dyed.

The flower contains many chemical substances: Carbohydrates, minerals, mucilage, vitamins (especially riboflavin, thiamin), pigments including crocin, anthrocvianin, carotene, lycopene, zigzantin etc.

Properties of Marigold flowers: (Tagetes erecta Linn, Tagetes patula Linn) 5:-

The flowers bloom from the beginning of summer upto autumn. The flowers contain flavonol - quercetagetol which is a derivative of quercetol. It is accompanied by 2 of its glucosides & luteine (a carotenoid). It also contains patulutol & some ellegic acid which act as a mordant. The flower contain several pigments which appear to vary with the source of material. This flower contain mainly two classes of pigments:-

a) Flavonoids, b) Carotenoids.

Flavonol is major subgroup of flavonoids. It is present in woody angiosperms & is soluble in water.  Xanthophyll is also present in flower and it is insoluble in water, but soluble in fats & in fat solvents. Quercetagetin have been isolated from Indian types, & kaempferitrin & helenien from Rumanian varities.

Materials, Methods & Discussions:

Yarn & Fabric:   Bleached cotton fabric is used for the studies.

Flowers: Golden yellow Marigold flowers are taken for the studies collected from near market.

• Aqueous Extract of colour from fresh Marigold 6:

Dye from Marigold flowers are extracted separately in different proportion extraction process is carried out at a particular temperature range. Colouring materials from the flowers are extracted to dyeing the fibre. After the extraction procedure is complete, the flowers are taken out from liquor and they are taken for extraction of dye for second time.

• Mordanting of Textile Fibre:

The sample of cotton is mordanted before dyeing. For mordanting we use different eco-friendly mordanting agents like Alum, Copper Sulphate, Ferrous Sulphate, Stannous Chloride, Chrome-Alum etc have been used (very low amount).

• Procedure of Dyeing of cloth:

The mordanting samples are immersed in dye bath for 2 hr at a temperature range of 80 0C and after completion of dyeing; samples are taken out and dried. It is allowed to be aged for a fixed time, and after that soaped with 2g/l non-ionic soap at room temperature for 10 minutes followed by rinsing and line dyeing.

Results & Discussions:

It is observed from the experiment that as time and temperature is increased, the extraction of dye from flower is increased. But as temperature is increased, some dye material is charred. So there will be a problem of extraction of dye from the flower. So a particular temperature is taken for the extraction dye from the flower. The colour purity of the samples for Marigold is around 35 using alum as mordant. In other cases it is around 7 -36. But for China rose flower it is lower (around 3 - 3.7). Colour-fastness to wash & light & perspiration fastness of the dyed samples are tested using grey scale. The light fastness properties are tested by exposing in normal day light by putting samples behind window glass. Using grey scale assesses the colour change. The extent of fading is assessed by grey scale. The wash -fastness is also tested using grey scale according to the method IS: 764 -1984 at 600C for 30 minutes. The results indicate that the colour fastness of the samples dyeing with Marigold is around 3- 4 where as 5 is the higher concentration rating. The lower rating may be due to the darkening of shade resulting in higher contrast & so poor rating. From the overall results it is seen that dyeing with alum give better result (both in light fastness & wash fastness) in respect of all other mordant. Stannous chloride used as mordant also gives better results, but the cost of this mordant is high. Heavy metal analysis have been performed (from dye solution, from colour cotton fabric dyeing with Marigold) using Atomic Absorption analysis and it is observed that the amount of metals present are very low (lower that 0.01 ppm)

Figure 3: Dyeing of cotton with Marigold flower (using different Mordant)

Conclusion

The present work shows that both Marigold flowers can be used as dye (yellow and other colour). The flowers are available in Eastern India & are grown almost every season. We can get different shades of colour using different mordant and the colour fastness, wash fastness properties also can be improved by different treatments procedure and so it can be used in small scale Industry as well as in large scale Industry also.

References

1. Parkes C. H; ‘Creating colour in Yarn: An introduction to natural Dyes’, Knitter’s Review, 2002 -2003.
2. http://www.housebarra.com/EP/ep03/03dyes.html; ‘Natural dyes’, December 22, 2003.
3. www.pioneerthinking.com; ‘Making Natural Dyes from Plants’, June 25, 2003.
4. Vankar P S; ‘Chemistry of Natural Dyes.’ Resonance, October 2000, pp 73 – 80.
5. The Wealth of India, Raw Materials, CSIR, 17,8, 1990
6. Ibrahim S.F, Michael M.N, Tera F.M, Samaha S.H; ‘Optimisation of the Dyeing process for chemically modified cotton fabrics’, Colourage, October 1997, pp-27.
7. www.geocities.com/kusumika_project

About the Authors

Ms. Papita Saha is the Lecturer in Biotechnology Department at National Institute of Technology, Durgapur, India and Prof. Siddhartha Datta is the Pro-Vice Chancellor, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.

Table 1: Chromaticity co-ordinates of dyeing cotton fabric

From Figure 2 -3, it is observed that as time and temperature is increased, the extraction of dye from flower is increased. But as temperature is increased, some dye material is charred. So there will be a problem of extraction of dye from the flower. So a particular temperature is taken for the extraction dye from the flower. The colour purity of the samples for Marigold is around 35 using alum as mordant. In other cases it is around 7 36. But for China rose flower it is lower (around 3 3.7). Colour-fastness to wash & light & perspiration fastness of the dyed samples are tested using grey scale. The light fastness properties are tested by exposing in normal day light by putting samples behind window glass. Using grey scale assesses the colour change. The extent of fading is assessed by grey scale. The wash -fastness is also tested using grey scale according to the method IS: 764 1984 at 60⁰C for 30 minutes. The results indicate that the colour fastness of the samples dyeing with Marigold is around 3 4 where as 5 is the higher concentration rating. The lower rating may be due to the darkening of shade resulting in higher contrast & so poor rating. From the overall results it is seen that dyeing with alum give better result (both in light fastness & wash fastness) in respect of all other mordant. Stannous chloride used as mordant also gives better results, but the cost of this mordant is high. Heavy metal analysis have been performed ( from dye solution, from colour cotton fabric dyeing with Marigold) using Atomic Absorption analysis and it is observed that the amount of metals present are very low ( lower that 0.01 ppm)

Figure 5: Dyeing of cotton with Marigold flower (with different Mordant)

Conclusion:

The present work shows that both Marigold flowers can be used as dye (yellow colour). The flowers are available in Eastern India & are grown almost every season. We can get different shades of colour using different mordants & the colour fastness, wash fastness properties also can be improved by different treatments procedure and so it can be used in small scale Industry as well as in large scale Industry also. This colour dye has no side effect on skin & it has no harmful effect on environment also. The process is economically viable as the raw materials are available with low of cost and so cost of production is also very low.

References:

1)    Parkes C. H; Creating colour in Yarn: An introduction to natural Dyes, Knitters Review, 2002 2003.

2)    http://www.housebarra.com/EP/ep03/03dyes.html; Natural dyes, December 22, 2003.

3)    www.pioneerthinking.com ; Making Natural Dyes from Plants, June 25, 2003.

4)    Vankar P S; Chemistry of Natural Dyes. Resonance, October 2000, pp 73 80.

5)    The Wealth of India, Raw Materials, CSIR, 17,8, 1990

6)    Ibrahim S.F, Michael M.N, Tera F.M, Samaha S.H; Optimisation of the Dyeing process for chemically modified cotton fabrics, Colourage, October 1997, pp-27.

7)    www.geocities.com/kusumika_project

About the Authors:

Papita Saha is associated with Biotechnology Department, National Institute of Technology, Durgapur, India and Prof. Siddhartha Datta is associated with Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.

To read more articles on Textile, Industry, Technical Textile, Dyes & Chemicals, Machinery, Fashion, Apparel, Technology, Retail, Leather, Footwear & Jewellery,  Software and General please visit https://articles.fibre2fashion.com

To promote your company, product and services via promotional article, follow this link: https://www.fibre2fashion.com/services/article-writing-service/content-promotion-services.asp