Effect of natural dyes and different mordant treatments on ultra-violet protection property of cotton fabric

Abstract

Natural dyes are eco-friendly, skin-friendly, have pleasing colours and other beneficial characteristics, such as UV protection property. In the present work, different natural dyes (onion skin, henna leaves, curry leaves, neem leaves and turmeric), along with a number of mordants (myrobalan, alum, ferrous sulphate and ferrous sulhate-myrobalan), were used to study their effects on colour strength and the ultraviolet protection factor (UPF) values of treated dyed cotton fabric. It was found that the highest colour strength (K/S) was achieved on ferrous sulphate-myrobalan treated turmeric dyed cotton fabric (75.45), followed by the samples dyed with onion skin (48.24), henna leaves (37.40), neem leaves (28.61) and curry leaves (25.96). The highest UPF value was found for ferrous sulphate-myrobalan pretreated curry leaves dyed cotton fabric (27.69), which indicated very good protection, whereas the ferrous sulphate-myrobalan pretreated onion skin dyed cotton fabric showed good protection (23.39), followed by those dyed with henna leaves (21.79), turmeric (19.48), and neem leaves (16.43).