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International Journal of Natural Products Research
Universal Research Publications. All rights reserved
ISSN: 2249-0353
Original Article
Comparative study of the natural dyes derived from two indigenous plants of
north-eastern India on silk and cotton fabrics
Warjeet S. Laitonjam,1* Lunalisa Potsangbam,2 Sujata D. Wangkheirakpam1
1
2
Department of Chemistry, Manipur University, Imphal – 795003, Manipur, India
Laksmikumaran and Sridharan, Attorneys B6/10 Safdarjung Enclave, New Delhi-110029, India.
[email protected],[email protected]
Received 01 March 2014; Accepted 20 March 2014
Abstract
Eco-friendly natural dyes derived from the three plants – Bridelia retusa (bark) and Parkia javanica (skin of fruit-pods).
The dyeing property of these plants was found to be from the content of anthraquinones, tannins and flavonoid moieties.
This investigation was done by extraction of the parts of the three plants with different solvents, the skin of fruit-pods of
Parkia javanica and Bridelis retusa were extracted in methanol.The extracts were concentrated and loaded on glass column
for the separation of colorants.The separated compounds were identified from their UV, IR, MASS and NMR spectra. The
dyeing capacity was investigated by using the dye on silk and cotton fabrics.The color strength in terms of K/S values
measurements were done by recording the reflectance of the extracted dyes. The fastness of the dyes were improved by
adding mordants such as CuSO4, K2Cr2O7, SnCl2 and Al(NH4)(SO4)2. Colorfastness tests to light, washing and crocking or
rubbing was carried out in a Fade-o-meter, Launder-O-meter and Crock-O-meter respectively and the degree of degree of
fastness was given in grey scales.The pre-mordanted dyed samples for silk and cotton showed good fastness properties.
© 2014 Universal Research Publications. All rights reserved
Key words- natural dyes, textiles, anthraquinones, tannins, mordants and absorbance.
1. Introduction
The Indian flora offers a vast source of natural
colorants which can be obtained from many plant parts,
e.g., leaves, fruits, seeds, flowers, barks and roots. The
northeastern region of India has an abundance of plant
species with dye yielding properties. The villagers of this
region are extracting dyes from leaves, roots, flowers or
barks of some plant species mostly by fermenting, boiling,
scrapping, powdering and mixing with other materials to
get the desired color1.There are many drawbacks of
synthetic dyes for example its carcinogenic property
pollution and waste water and many vegetable dyes are
developed to combat the problem2-3. The fastness of the
dyes is enhanced by adding metallic mordants4. But there is
no complete documentation available of this for scientific
literature. Though various workers have reported results on
the extraction of color components from different dyebearing plant species, many species remain unexplored. It
is, therefore, not only imperative but also necessary to
explore the extraction of natural colorants from abundantly
occurring plant sources.
Herein we report the extraction of the principal colorants
from two plant species – Bridelia retusa
called sahi
15
locally from its stem barks and from Parkia javanica
locally called yongchak from the fruit pods and evaluation
of the dyeing and fastness properties on silk and cotton
fabrics. The dyeing property of these plants were found to
be from the content of anthraquinones, tannins and
flavonoid moieties5,6. Epilgallactocatechin was also
obtained from Bridelia.
Materials and Methods
2.1. Different parts of three plant species which were
selected for the present work are:
(1) Parkia javanica, it belongs to family leguminaceae, is
a tropical leguminous medium sized tree which
reaches a height of about 40 meters and bears flat
fruits which are 20-50 cm. long, blackish in coloration
on maturity. Each pod has about 15 black seeds. The
pods have very nutritional seeds. The skin of the fruit
was used for dye extraction.
(2) Bridelia retusa belongs to Euphorbiaceae, it is a tree
which has color yielding stem bark.
Plant parts 3-4 kgs were collected from Manipur. The
collected plant parts were put into plastic containers
and transported to the laboratory. The samples were
washed under free flowing water to remove dust and
other particles and air-dried. Dried plant parts were
International Journal of Natural Products Research 2014; 4(1): 15-18
pulverized and used for further use.
The cotton fabric was scoured in a non-ionic detergent
solution. The material to liquor (M:L) ratio was maintained
at 1:30, after which the fabrics were washed with distilled
water, dried and ironed. Prior to dying or mordanting, the
fabric samples were soaked in de-ionized water for half an
hour for better absorbency. Pure Jaypee wool and pure silk
were soured by standard methods by mild non-ionic
surfactants (Mukherjee et al 1999, Nishida et al 1992).
Mordants such as copper sulphate (CuSO4-5H2O)(LR,SD
Fine ), Potassium dichromate(K 2 Cr2O7) (LR,SD Fine ),
Stannous chloride (Sncl2-2H2O)(LR,SD Fine), Stannic
chloride (Sncl2-2H2O) (LR,Spectrochem), Ferrous sulphate
(FeSO4) (Loba Chemie) and alum (Al(NH4) (SO4)2-12H2O)
(LR,SD Fine ) were used. Distilled water was used in
extraction and for preparation of all chemical solutions and
for dyeing processes (Saligram et al 1993).
2.2. Preparation of samples for extraction of color
components:
The air-dried samples of each plant part containing
about 12-15% moisture were ground in a domestic mixie
and sieved with a 2 mm BIS sieve and stored at room
temperature (25-300 C). The extract was prepared from the
ground powder using mostly hot water and rarely in cold
water.
2.3 Determination of absorbance and color strength
measurements:
Dye solutions of 4% for all the extracted dyes
were prepared and definite amounts were taken in the dyebath by maintaining M:L ratio at 1:10. The absorbance of
the dye solutions was recorded (Mathur et al 2001),before
and after dyeing on a Lamda 40 PE UV/Vis
spectrophotometer. An average of 3 measurements at each
concentration was recorded. The amount of dye absorbed
was calculated11-12 12 (Mathur J. P. and Bhandari C. S.,
2001b by using the relation. % Dye Absorbance = 100 x
Absorb. before dyeing –Absorb. after dyeing/absorb. before
dyeing.
The color strength (K/S) values of the dyed samples were
evaluated by light reflectance technique and the values
were assessed using the Kubelka-Munk equation.
K/S=(1 – R)2/2R
where R is the observed reflectance; K, the absorption
coefficient and S, the light scattering coefficient (AATCC,
Technical Manual, 1968).
2.4 Dyeing of silk and cotton fabrics:
The cotton fabrics were pre-treated with 2% tannic
acid keeping the M:L ratio at1:10 at 80° C for 30 min.The
fabrics were dyed7.It was dyed in a dye bath containing 4%
of Parkia, Bridelia dye keeping the M:L ratio at 1:10. The
dyeing was carried out at 700C for 45 min, after which 2%
sodium chloride solution was added to the dye bath and the
system was further kept at that temperature for 15minThe
fabrics were then washed thoroughly with de-ionized water
and dried at room temperature 8.
2.5 Method of mordanting:
The pre-mordanting method involved using 2%
solutions each of CuSO4, K2Cr2O7, SnCl2, SnCl4 and
Al(NH4)(SO4)2 which were employed at M:L ratio 1:10.
Mordanting was carried out for 30min at 60 0C. The fabrics
16
were then washed and dried (Nishida, et al 1992),.
2.6 Measurement of fastness properties:
Colorfastness tests to light, washing and crocking
or rubbing was carried out in a Fad-O-meter, Launder-Ometer and Crock-O-meter respectively and the fastness
ratings were given in Grey-scales (AATCC, Technical
Manual,1968).
2.7 CIElab coordinates:
The CIE coordinates L, a and b of the samples dyed and
mordanted with 2% solution of each mordants were
evaluated. The higher values of a and b indicte brightness,
which is more due to redness and yellowness, respectively,
and the negative values indicate greenness and blueness,
which are more towards the dull side. The lower the value
of L, the greater is the depth. Table-6 shows L*, a*, b*
values for cotton fabric while table-7 shows L*, a*, b*
values for silk fabrics (Colorimetry, CIE No.15.2,1986).
3 Results and Discussion:
3.1 Effect of concentration of dye on absorption and
color strength.
The absorption of dye (%) increased with
increasing in concentration and reached a maximum at 56% concentration for Bridelia and 4% concentration for
Parkia similarly, K/S values also increased with an increase
in the dye concentration. Though the K/S values continued
to increase, maximum absorption .The variation of the K/S
values are seen from the graph plotted with different
mordants in figure 1 and 2. Therefore, these concentrations
of the dyes in the dye bath might be taken as optimal.
Figure 1. Change in K/S values with different mordants for
Bridelia
Figure 2. Change in K/S value with different mordants for
Parkia
3.2 Effect of mordanting conditions:
It was observed that pre mordanting technique
imparted better fastness properties to the cotton and
silk fabric and wool yarn, the fabrics were mordanted with
International Journal of Natural Products Research 2014; 4(1): 15-18
Table 1. Bridelia retusa for Cotton Fabric
Dye
Bridelia retusa
Stannic Chloride
Pot dichromate
Copper Sulphate
Stannous Chloride
Ferrous Sulphate
Bridelia (Aq)
Mordant
Alum
SnCl4
K2Cr2O7
CuSO4
SnCl2
FeSO4
Alum
SnCl4
K2Cr2O7
CuSO4
SnCl2
FeSO4
Fabric
Cotton
Cotton
L*
55.510
62.907
52.959
52.123
56.241
38.455
55.163
60.809
53.065
60.965
66.576
44.811
a*
14.149
8.566
3.493
9.737
15.033
3.404
11.452
8.582
2.266
4.730
8.975
4.409
b*
25.959
25.336
23.983
28.804
25.450
11.205
25.599
23.707
22.884
11.901
23.059
12.115
46.965
28.475
40.706
42.486
52.276
33.753
8.820
1.544
6.873
7.526
8.603
4.463
19.100
3.695
18.421
18.338
15.545
10.302
Table 2. Parkia javanica for Cotton Fabric
Parkia
Parkia javanica
Alum
Cotton
Tannic Acid
K2Cr2O7
CuSO4
SnCl2
FeSO4
CuSO4- 5H2O, (K 2 Cr2O7, nCl2-2H2O and Al(NH4)(SO4)212H2O.
The mordant activity of metal ions followed the
sequences:
Fe(II)→Cu(II) → Cr(VI) →Al(III) →Sn(II) →TA and
→ Cr(VI) → Cu(II) → Sn(II) → Al(III)→TA in samples
dyed with Parkia javanica.
Fe(II)→ Cr(IV) →Cu(II) →Al(III) →Sn(II) →TA and
respectively in silk and cotton dyed with Bridelia retusa
The color intensity was found to be maximum
when mordanted with Cu(II) and Cr(VI) as compared to
Al(III) and Sn(II) for both the fibres. Further, bright shades
were obtained by using 2% of Cu, Fe and Cr, which
implied that the absorption of color by fabric was better
when using Cu(II), Fe(II) and Cr(VI) as mordants.
Experimentation with PEG, amylase and TA was done to
evaluate if these showed any improvement in dye uptake.
However metal mordanting was better in all the cases. This
might be due to the maximum absorption and easy
formation of metal-complexes with the fabrics. The
fastness tests were applied to mordanted-dyed fabrics and
yarn. Fair to good washing and crocking fastness properties
(Table 1 and Table 2) were obtained with Cu and Cr
mordants, while light shades were obtained with SnCl22H2O and alum.
3.3 Evaluation of color co-ordinates of dyed fibres:
The color coordinates were positive with respects
to brightness L, red-green a, yellow-value b and was in the
yellow-red quadrant of the color space diagram (Table 2
and Table 5). Further, the L values decreased corresponding
to deeper shades on mordanting. The fibres dyed and postmordanted with CuSO4-5H2O and K2Cr2O7 showed the low
L values indicating deeper shades obtained on mordanting
17
with these metal salts compared to that obtained with
SnCl2-2H2O and alum with high L values. Thus, for all the
dyes, Cu(II) and Cr (VI) may effectively be used as
mordant salts. Such type of research has been carried out
for manufacturing natural dyes15.
4.Conclusions
The investigation for colorant compounds was
done by extraction of the parts of the three plants with
different solvents from the skin of fruit-pods of Parkia
javanica, the young leaves of tectona and bark of Bridelia.
The natural color isolated from the skin of fruit-pods of
Parkia javanica and those isolated from the stem barks of
Bridelia contained mainly anthraquinone, tannins and
flavonoid moieties. Epilgallactocatechin was also reported
from Bridelia. The extracted dyes were tried on silk and
cotton fabrics, the color strength in terms of K/S values
measurements were done by recording their absorbance.
The absorption of dye (%) increased with increasing in
concentration and reached a maximum at 5-6%
concentration for Bridelia and 4% concentration for Parkia
similarly, K/S values also increased with an increase in the
dye concentration. Though the K/S values continued to
increase, maximum absorption .The pre-mordanted dyed
and samples for cotton and silk showed good fastness
properties. The fastness of the dyes were increased by
adding mordants such as CuSO4, K2Cr2O7, SnCl2 and
Al(NH4)(SO4)2. Colorfastness tests to light, washing and
crocking or rubbing was carried out in a Fad-O-meter,
Launder-O-meter and Crock-O-meter respectively and the
fastness ratings were given in Grey-scales. The fibres dyed
and post-mordanted with CuSO4-5H2O and K2Cr2O7
showed the low L values indicating deeper shades obtained
on mordanting with these metal salts compared to that
International Journal of Natural Products Research 2014; 4(1): 15-18
obtained with SnCl2-2H2O and alum with high L values.
Thus, for all the dyes, Cu(II) and Cr (VI) may effectively
be used as mordant salts. Therefore, the dyes obtained from
native plants might be alternative sources to synthetic dyes
for dyeing of cotton, silk and wool.
Acknowledgments
The authors express their sincere thanks to Department of
Science and Technology (DST) for financial support.
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Source of support: Department of Science and Technology (DST),
New Delhi.
Conflict of interest: None declared
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International Journal of Natural Products Research 2014; 4(1): 15-18