Wash fastness properties of pre-mordanting cotton fabrics dyed with natural dyes

Abstract

With the awareness of the negative effects of synthetic products on the environment and human health, there is a global search for environmentally, friendly and sustainable consumer products with natural dyes. The concept of naturalness gains importance for textile products that are in direct contact with human body. Therefore, dyeing process of cellulosic based fabrics in different colours with natural dyes has been developed. In this study, cotton fabrics were dyed in different colours at 1% and 3% concentrations by pre-mordanting with a cationic mordanting agent, and the washing fastness of the fabrics was tested. Before dyeing the fabrics were pre-treated and made sustainable for dyeing. Tube dyeing was performed with five different commercial natural dyes at different concentrations using the HT dyeing technique. Cotton fabrics structures in different colours were obtained by using a thickening agent in dyeing and a colour chart that could be presented to the market was created. In the studies carried out, it was observed that the fastness results were quite good in the acceptable value range (3-5), although there were dyeing defect, especially in dark dyed fabrics. It was determined that the prepared dyes should be filtered in order to minimize the dyeing defect.