Padding technique for natural dyeing

Abstract

The dye extracted from palas flower petals has been used on cotton fabric and a comparative study is carried out for conventional exhaust dyeing against the pad dyeing. For these two methods, combination of experiments has been conducted for three typical mordanting methods with four different mordants. In conventional dyeing method, at three different temperatures (60˚, 80˚ and 100˚C), more uneven dyeing is observed. Hence, to overcome this problem, padding method is tried for 5, 15 and 30 min steaming time. The <em>K/S</em> values show that, 80˚C is the optimum temperature for exhaust method, while for padding method, 15 min is the optimum time of steaming. Out of all experiment combinations, ferrous sulfate with pre-mordanting method gives excellent depth of shade. <em>K/S</em> value for the conventional exhaust dyeing is 7.45, while it is 9.15 for padding with significantly improved fastness ratings as compared to conventional technique. Thus, it is inferred that the innovative padding method is significantly superior to conventional exhaust method. The added advantage of pad method lies in significant time as well as energy saving.