ABSTRACT
Interest in environment-friendly textile processing techniques has been augmenting in recent years. Natural dyes are environment friendly, low toxic and less allergenic owing to the existence of large number of structurally diverse active compounds which makes natural colourants promising options for the development of antimicrobial and ultra-violet (UV) protective textiles. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of biopolymer and dyeing treatment with natural dye on the functional properties (antibacterial and UV protection) of cotton fabric and the assessment was done using standard test method. It was found that the chitosan treated onion skin dyed cotton fabric showed 97.20 percent and 98.03 % reduction in the growth of E. coli and S. aureus bacteria respectively. The chitosan treated dyed cotton fabric showed the higher ultra-violet protection factor (UPF) value (84.80) as compared to alum treated dyed cotton fabric (66.70) depicting that the chitosan treated dyed cotton fabric provided more ultraviolet protection than the alum treated dyed fabric.
Subject(s)
Anti-Bacterial Agents/pharmacology , Cellulose/chemistry , Chitosan/chemistry , Coloring Agents/pharmacology , Cotton Fiber , Onions/metabolism , Anti-Bacterial Agents/chemistry , Biopolymers/chemistry , Escherichia coli/drug effects , Gossypium , Hydrogen-Ion Concentration , Microbial Sensitivity Tests , Staphylococcus aureus/drug effects , Temperature , Textiles , Ultraviolet RaysABSTRACT
The major concerns of today's textile wet processing are large use of chemicals and toxic effluents. Eco-friendly sustainable ways of textile processing which are safe to health and environment are receiving much attention. Wool fabric suffers from irreversible shrinkage during washing. In this study, sustainable biopolymers have been utilized to impart shrink resistance finish to wool fabric without affecting the original properties of the fabric. The wool fabric was coated with gum arabic, chitosan, and wheat starch biopolymers. The presence of biopolymers on the wool fabrics was confirmed by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM). The tensile, bending, friction, color strength, yellowness index and whiteness index was measured along with shrink resistance of wool fabric before and after the biopolymer treatment. The biopolymer treatment significantly reduced the area shrinkage (<4%) of wool fabric. The biopolymer coating could be a viable and sustainable alternative to conventional treatments for developing shrink-resistant wool fabric with no adverse effect on fabric properties.
