Herbal Pretreatment of Natural Fabrics for Digital Printing with Ecological Inks

Abstract

Solvents and humectants are utilized in vast amounts in the textile digital print industry. This poses dire consequences to the environment and human health. The instigated study experimented with eco-friendly pre-treatment to prepare wool and cotton fabrics for digital printing with herbal inks. A factorial experiment was designed to study the quality of printing affected by various factors (variables). The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine whether there were any significant differences among the variables. Contradictory to the hypothesis the herbal pre-treatment with guar gum was deducted to be more substantial than guar gum-glycerol pre-treatment for both wool and cotton fabrics on digital printing with herbal inks. The commercially pre-treated fabric was implemented as a reference. The ANOVA one-way test reported a p-value of 0.014 indicating the effect of pre-treatment on the color values gained as statistically significant. Also, the Standard Deviation of 1.12 was manifested with Herbal pre-treated fabrics and an SD of 1.02 was noted with Commercial pre-treated fabrics, implying that the estimated data is trustworthy. Before herbal pre-treatment, the plasma surface modification is recommended for future work as it would impel the subsequent herbal pre-treatment & resultant fabric properties required for digital printing.