RESUMO
The field of ultrasonic is still making strides towards perfection, but already many applications of ultrasonic energy have been found in science and technology. There is also a field called sonochemistry where ultrasonic energy is used to create some chemical and mechanical effects on matter immersed or solved in liquids. It was presumed that ultrasonic textile washing could be a competitive alternative to conventional textile washing techniques; and as such the following experiments were conducted. In this study, the effects of ultrasonic energy on the wash fastness of reactive dyes, which have three different reactive groups, were investigated. After dyeing with the conventional method, the samples were applied with three types of washing processes simultaneously (conventional, ultrasonic probe and ultrasonic bath) and comparisons were made. Three different fixing agents were used in the washing processes. Colourfastness, staining fastness, magnitude of total colour difference (DeltaE) and lightness difference of the colour (DeltaL) values of dyed samples were measured.
RESUMO
Although ultrasonic energy is widely used cleaning and degreasing of parts and assemblies in automotive and other industries, the use of ultrasonic energy in an industrial scale for textile washing is very new. This is due to the complexity of controlling the combination of chemical and mechanical effects, whereas with degreasing of machine parts only the mechanical effects is applied. The use of ultrasonic energy in dyeing PA/Lycra fabrics with reactive dyes has been studied spectrophotometrically in this work. PA/Lycra (85/15) blends have been dyed using conventional and ultrasonic dyeing techniques with three reactive dyes containing different chromophore and reactive groups. The dyeing carried out conventionally and by the use of ultrasonic techniques. The results were compared in terms of percentage exhaustion; total dye transferred to the washing bath after dyeing and the fastness properties.
