An approach for vat color printing on cotton and polyester fabrics with electron beam irradiation curable formulations

Abstract

► Electron beam irradiation was used as a new fixation tool of vat dyes. ► The radiation curable formulations free from reducing agent and thickener. ► This process reduces all the processes of conventional method in one step. ► The effective conditions were: monomer/oligomer ratio of (25/75 wt%) and irradiation dose of 75 kGy. ► Vat printing by electron beam affords color yield higher than the conventional method. Accelerated electrons delivered by electron beam accelerator were used to fix vat colors, incorporated in curable formulations containing diluting monomer and an oligomer, to cellulosic fabric, cotton and polyester fabric. Tetrahydrofurfuryl acrylate, hexane dioldiacrylate, monomers and trifunctional urethane methacrylate, oligomer were used as curable base beside ethylene glycol. The fabrics were printed with these formulations and exposed to various doses of electron beam irradiation generated from the 1.5 MeV (25 kW) electron beam accelerator machine. Critical factors included the irradiation dose, formulation composition, and vat color concentration were studied. The fabrics printed with the vat colors by electron beam irradiation displayed higher color yield than those fabrics printed by the conventional curing at equal vat color ratios. The durable properties of fabrics printed by electron beam irradiation except the roughness properties are extremely better than those printed by conventional fixation method.