CATIONIZATION OF COTTON FABRIC FOR IMPROVED DYE UPTAKE

Cotton fabric is mostly dyed with reactive dyes. Reactive dyeing of cotton requires a large amount of salt for the exhaustion of dye from the dyebath onto the fiber. Considerable amount of dyes is hydrolyzed. Dyeing of cotton with reactive dyes has serious environmental impact as large volume of highly colored and saline effluent is discharged. The process named cationization allows dyeing cotton fibers without using salt. This process consists of a chemical modification of cellulosic macromolecules to introduce positively charged sites. In this study, cotton fabric was cationized using 3-chloro-2-hydroxylpropyl trimethyl-ammonium chloride (CHPTAC). The assessment of dye uptake was investigated with two reactive dyes, CI Reactive Blue 235 and CI Reactive Blue 19. Dye exhaustion kinetics were established using the Datacolor-HueMetrix Monitor system. The color of the fabric at the end of the dyeing cycle was measured using Macbeth colorimer. The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) shows statistically significant effect of the CHPTAC concentration (treatment) and the exhaustion time. There is also significant interaction treatment*exhaustion time.