6 - Use of newer technologies in natural dyeing—plasma and electron beam

Abstract

Natural dyes have gained more attention due to their nontoxic and eco-friendly nature. However, dyeing with natural dyes has limitations, and it is challenging to apply, as they possess some inherent demerits, such as less or no attraction toward the synthetic fabric, need of a mordant, fixers, and other auxiliaries for fixation onto the textile substrates, lower dye uptake, and poor color fastness. This has limited their potential use in the industrial-scale dyeing of synthetic fabrics. Thus newer technologies are being now explored to overcome these challenges and among many of them are plasma technology and electron beam irradiation. Plasma pretreatment has proven to be used as an environmentally friendly approach to improve dye uptake of even synthetic textiles with natural dyes. Plasma treatment is an emerging surface modification technique that alters dye uptake of fabric without using chemicals or water for pretreatment. Plasma technology has proven to impart enhanced dye exhaustion, dye penetration, and dyeing in shorter time with minimal of chemical auxiliaries and energy usage. The effects of plasma treatment can enhance up to 30% of dye adsorption as compared to untreated sample.