Ecological dyeing of cotton fabric with Matricaria recutita L. in the presence of human hair keratins as an alternative copartner to metallic mordants

Abstract

A growing interest is being nowadays shown in sustainable and green textile dyes aimed at reducing the adverse environmental impacts associated with unsafe materials. It is the objective of the present work to salvage human hair waste by using renewable plant materials and herbaceous dyes. For this purposes, human hair keratin is used as a novel low-cost bio-agent to improve the affinity of natural colorants to cellulosic materials and Matricaria recutita flower extract as an agricultural dye not only to reduce the waste released into the environment but also to produce biocompatible products with value added properties. The influence of the main dyeing conditions on the performances of this dyeing process were studied. The energy of the hydrogen bond and the hydrogen bonding distance of dyed samples were also estimated by the (OH) stretching band. It is found that while M. recutita might serve as an abundant and environmentally safe source of natural dye, hair keratin used as a modification agent could improve cotton fabric dyeability toward M. recutita extract. The bio-textiles thus obtained exhibit good properties of light and wash fastness due to their hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic properties. Moreover, the samples subjected to the proposed pre-treating and dyeing technique offer improved UV protection. The use of biodegradable human hair keratin as a new sustainable modification agent in cotton dyeing process resulted not only in improving of dye uptake of cotton fabrics but also will be helpful in minimizing the environmental problem of hair waste and byproducts. Hence, the proposed novel approach might serve as an excellent and economical replacement for the common dyeing procedures as it alters the microstructure of cotton materials at no environmental costs.