PRESENTATION ON

ECO-FRINDLY
DYEING OF SILK
Natural Dyes in Ancient
Egypt
 Ancient Egyptians
loved red
 Old Kingdom tombs in
the Nile Valley were
filled with red linens
 King Tut was buried
with safflower seeds

Rubia
tinctorum
 Natural Dyes in Ancient
India
 India was famous for
their blue textiles,
which were highly
valued (said to rival
Phoenician purple
garments)
 Reasons for success:
 Indiawas settled early
 Large labor force
 Blessed by natural
surroundings
 Wildcotton
 Natural metal mordants
Indigofera
tinctoria
Categorizing Natural Dyes
 Methods:  Types:
 Maceration (chopping)  Substantive
 Ebullition (boiling)  Vat (need a second
 Fermentation
step)
 Ex: Indigo
 Adjective (need the
fibers to be treated
with mordants)
 Ex: Madder & Logwood

Logwood Tree
Native to
Caribbean
1856
William Henry Perkin
•Accidentally produced
and discovered mauve,
the first synthetic dye

More synthetic dyes

•

were created after his

discovery

Natural dye use steadily

•

declined
Classification
 Plant Dyes
 Mineral Dyes
 Animal dyes
Natural dyes
 There are three primary sources for
natural dyes—plants, animals and
minerals.
 natural dyes can be broken down
into two categories— substantive
and adjective.
 Substantive dyes, also referred to as
direct dyes, become chemically fixed
to the fiber without the aid of any
other chemicals or additives.
 Adjective dyes, also referred to as
mordant dyes, require an added
substance known as a mordant to
make the dyes colorfast.
Category of vegetable
dye
 Natural dyes fall into the following categories:
 Leaves and stems
 Twigs and pruning's
 Flower heads
 Barks
 Roots
 Outer skins, hulls and husks
 Heartwoods and wood shavings
 Berries and seeds
 Lichens
 Preparation of Vegetable
Dye
 Collecting the parts of the plants (leaves, barks, stems,
flowers, fruits, seeds).
 Testing of raw material for assessment of colour
contents,Dyeing.
 Size reduction by pulverizing
 Separation of different size by vibrating screen,
 Extraction of colouring component
 Phase separation
 Fine filtering
 Drying of colouring matter (Dyes) in spray dryer,
 Packing:
A) Liquid form
B) Paste form
C) Power form
Natural Indigo
 Blue Dyestuff for Textile.
 This is one of the most ancient
Natural Dyes used by Man in
textiles.
 Indigo is about 2-3 feet long plant,
 the extract form of dye is supplied in
powder form.
 This give deep blue color on wool,
silk, cotton etc.
 This is the only Natural Dye, which
falls under Vat category of dyes.
 Indigo is a blue dye derived from the leaves of a
leguminous plant.
 indigo has some of the best fastness properties—and in
fact it is the only natural blue dye of permanence.
 Indigo is insoluble in water. During the dyeing process it is
made soluble.
 Once the fabric is dipped into the indigo dye bath, dye is
deposited into the fibers. When the fabric is removed the
air oxidizes the indigo, returning it to its original natural
insoluble state—permanently locking it in to the fiber.
Properties
Madder

 Madder is considered the “Queen of the

Reds.” It is one of the oldest and most
frequently used natural dyes. 
 It was the main source of red dye in large
part because it could be easily cultivated
 Madder is a member of the coffee family.
 It is an herbaceous plant with an extensive
fibrous root system in which the
concentrated red colorant is stored.
 The root is beaten into a paste. Depending
on the mordant it can produce deep orange-
red to deep red colors.
 Madder can be used to dye cotton, wool and
silk.
 Turmeric
 Turmeric, a popular yellow spice, is a natural 
direct dye .
 It fades in the light
 The chemical that gives turmeric its colour is
called curcumin
 mix several tablespoons of turmeric into a couple
of gallons of water in your largest cooking pot,
boil it for half an hour or an hour, strain the water
through a coffee filter to remove particles of
turmeric, add your silk to the resulting colour
water,
 gradually bring the temperature of the dye bath
up to 180°F, stirring constantly,
 while using a thermometer to make sure that you
do not overheat the silk.
 Hold the temperature for half an hour or longer,
then let the silk cool in the dye bath.
 wash thoroughly in cool water, until no more dye
comes out of the fabric. 
 Fustic
 Fustic dye comes from a tree in the mulberry family
and therefore is often referred to as mulberry.
 The dye is obtained from the hardwood of the tree.
 fustic was considered the best source for yielding a
yellow color.
 Various mordants can be used.
 Potassium bichromate is the most popular mordant.
 The dye that is derived from fustic is colorfast but a bit
dull.
 Fustic can be used to dye cotton, wool and silk.
 Eclipta

 Eclipta is a common weed which produces

fluorescent green shades on silk.
 Cotton can also be dyed with Eclipta.
 Variety of green shades can be produced.
 Eclipta dye exhibits relatively good fastness to
rubbing, light and washing, making it well suited
for cotton
Himalayan Rubrub

 Common Name is Dolu,

Himalayan Rubrub
  Yellow dyestuff for Textiles.
 Dolu is about 1.5 to 3 meter
high stout herb.
 It is grown at an altitude of
about 3000 to 5000 meters
high.
 The color is extracted from its
wood.
 Mordent- alum and chrome and ferrous
sulfate
 The dyeing was performed for 30 and 45
minutes. The best dye extraction
medium was the acidic medium
 H. patens dye produced various shades
on silk yarns by using the different
mordants and mordanting methods.
 Logwood

 The logwood tree grows naturally in

Central America, Mexico and northern
parts of South America.
 Depending on the mordant used a
variety of violets, silvers, greys and
black shades can be produced.
 The most important application of
logwood was dyeing fabric black.
Brazilwood
 Brazilwood refers to a dye
obtained from several different
trees and shrubs from a wide
variety of origins.
 Clear Christmas reds to deep
garnet red can be obtained with
an alum mordant.
 A variety of pinks are produced
when tin is used.
Orchil

 Orchil is a very old dye that was

initially obtained from several different
varieties of the lichens found on
coastal rocks and cliffs along the
Mediterranean coast.
 Orchil is one of the few substantive
dyes which produce a wide range of
purple shades.
 Mordants can be used to yield other
colors.
 Mordanting with tin produces a dull
colorfast red shade.
 Woad
 Woad was used for all shades of
blue.
 It is the name of a plant with yellow
flowers which grows up to 1.5
meters tall. It grows wild around the
Mediterranean sea
 The dye comes from the leaves
which were crushed and boiled in
urine at a constant temperature for
30 hours.
Weld
 
 The upper part of the plant, including
the leaves and seeds, was used to
produce a variety of bright yellow
hues.
 The color produced is dependent on
the fiber and mordant.
 A chrome mordant used with either
wool or cotton produces an olive-
yellow hue.
 A titanium mordant used with silk
produces bright yellow.
 Weld was used for yellow dyes.
 The plant is cut down, dried and
chopped up. It is placed into boiling
water and simmers for an hour at 80ºC
to 100ºC.
Mangosteen
 Extracted dye from the dried
fruit hulls of mangosteen was
used as a natural dye for the
dyeing of cotton and silk yarn.
 The optimal conditions for dye
extraction were to extract the
dried fruit hulls of mangosteen
at 80°C for 1 hour with citric
acid solution in a 1:4 ratio of
mangosteen powder to solvent.
 Good fastness properties were
also obtained using a post-
mordanted silk with calcium
hydroxide.
Kamala
  Orange yellow or golden yellow
dyestuff for Textiles.
 Kamala is taken from fruit of the
plant Mallotus. This is an
evergreen tree growing upto 25
meter high.
 It imparts beautiful color on wool
and silk.
 On cotton Kamala does not give
as deep color as on wool or silk.
  
 Marigold
Selection of dye:-
 60 gm freshly collected Mari gold
petals were dried in shade and
powdered.
Selection of mordants:-
 Natural mordant - Dried juice of
Aloe vera
Selection of fibers:- Silk
 20 gms of the dried Marigold
flower powder was extracted with
100 ml of distilled water and
heated for 1 hour at 1000C.
 The extract was filtered to obtain a
yellowish brown dye
Major Animal Dyes

 Cochineal (red) - from bodies of

cochineal insects.
 Tyrian Purple (purple or crimson) - from
the bodies of some types of marine
snails.
 Sepia (brown) - from secretions of
several types of cuttlefish.
 Lac-from insects
 Tyrian purple

 Tyrian purple is a purple dye made in

the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre
from a secretion of Spiny Dye-
Murex (Murex brandaris), a marine
snail.
 A similar dye, "Hyacinth Purple" was
made from the related Banded Dye-
Murex Murex trunculus.
 The fast, non-fading dye
 The main chemical constituent of the
Tyrian dye was discovered by Paul
Friedländer in 1909 to be 6,6'-
dibromoindigo
 Conchineal
 In 1518, the Spaniards discovered the indigenous
people of Mexico using cochineal “seeds” as a dye.
 The bug thrived on the nopal or opunti cactus.
 As the insect matured the wingless dye-yielding
females were swept off the leaves to which they were
attached and plunged into hot water.
 The dead insects were then laid in the sun or placed in
a bag and put in the oven to dry. After the insects
were dried they were ground into a fine powder.
 It takes 70,000 dried insects to produce a pound of
dye. 
 Dark burgundy to bright red to soft lilac and pink can
be obtained from cochineal.
 A deep crimson dye is extracted from the
female cochineal insects.
 Cochineal extract's natural carminic-acid
content is usually 19–22%.
 There are two principal forms of cochineal
dye: cochineal extract is a colouring made
from the raw dried and pulverised bodies
of insects, and carmine is a more purified
colouring made from the cochineal.
 To prepare carmine, the powdered insect
bodies are boiled in ammonia or a
sodium carbonate solution, the insoluble
matter is removed by filtering, and alum
 is added to the clear salt solution of
carminic acid to precipitate the red 
aluminium salt.
 Lac

 The female insects attach

themselves to the twigs of trees
where they reproduce rapidly,
exuding a thick gummy red
resinous substance.
 It was the dye used to produce
crimson for Persian carpets.
 Mordants

 Few natural dyes are colour-fast with fibres.

Mordants are substances which are used to
fix a dye to the fibres.
 They also improve the take-up quality of the
fabric and help improve colour and light-
fastness.
 The term is derived from the Latin mordere,
to bite.
 Mordants are prepared in solution, often with
the addition of an ‘assistant’ which improves
the fixing of the mordant to the yarn or fibre.
 Types of Mordents

Metallic mordants
 Metal salts of aluminium, chromium, iron,
copper and tin are used.
Tannins
 Myrobalan and Sumach are the commonly
used tannins employed as mordants in the
dyeing of textile fibres.
Oil mordants
 Oil mordants are used mainly in the dyeing
of turkey red color from maddar. The main
function of the oil mordant is to form a
complex with alum used as maddar. The
sulfonated oils, which possess better metal
binding capacity than the natural oils due to
the presence of sulfonic acid group, bind to
metal ions forming a complex with the dye
to give superior fastness and hue.
Mineral mordent

 Alum: (Aluminum Potassium Sulfate)

This is the most widely used mordant. Be careful not to use
too much with wool
 Copper: (Copper Sulfate)
This mordant is used to bring out the greens in dyes. It will
also darken the dye colors, similar to using tin, but is less
harsh.
 Chrome: (Potassium Dichromate)
Chrome brightens dye colors and is more commonly used
with wool and silk
 Chrome should not be inhaled and gloves should be worn
while working with chrome. It is treated as hazardous waste.
 Iron: (Ferrous Sulfate)
Dulls and darkens dye colours. Using too much will make the
fiber brittle.
 Glaubersalt: (Sodium Sulfate)
Used in natural dyes to level out the bath. Also use in
chemical dye.
 Tara Powder: (Caesalpinia Spinosa)
Tara Powder is a natural tannin product. It is needed for
darker colors on cotton, linen and hemp.
 Tartaric Acid: A must for cochineal. This mordant will
expand the cochineal colors.
 Tin: (Stannous Chloride)
Tin will give extra bright colors to reds, oranges and yellows
on protein fibers. Using too much will make wool and silk
brittle. To avoid this you can add a pinch of tin at the end of
the dying time with fiber that was premordanted with alum.
Tin is not commonly used with cellulose fibers.
 Calcium Carbonate: 
Is to be used with indigo powder for the saxon blue color. It
can also be used to lower the acidity of a dyebath.
Why mordents??

 Iron is used as a ‘saddener’ and is used to darken colours.

 Copper sulphate also darkens but can give shades which
are otherwise very difficult to obtain.
 Tin brightens colours.
 Tannic acid, used traditionally with other mordants, will add
brilliancy.
 Chrome is good for obtaining yellows.
 Oxalic acid is good for extracting blues from berries.
Plant as mordent
-Pomegranate
•  Yellow dyestuff for
Textiles.
• The dye is extracted from
its fruit rind.
• The color obtained exhibit
good fastness to washing
rubbing and light
• At times this dye is also
used as mordant and is
over dyed with other
Natural Dye to improve
fastness of later.
 Aloe vera juice

 Fresh leaves of Aloe vera are used.

 The outer green surface was
peeled off and the linear white
mass was collected.
 150 gm of the collected material
was crushed to a semi-solid
consistency which was subjected
to filtration.
Teak
Harda
Manjuphal
Catechu

 Catechu, also known as cutch, was first

introduced around 1800 in Germany.
 It is a vegetable dye that produces a variety
of brown shades on silk.
 Yellow-brown is produced when alum is
used; reddish-brown is produced when a
chrome mordant is used.
 A brownish-black can be obtained with iron
and a medium brown with copper.
 Bengal catechu is derived from the
heartwood and pods of a leguminous tree.
Bombay catechu is obtained from betel nuts
from an Asian palm.
 It has historically been used to dye cotton
and silk.
Babool
Maddar nut
Arjun
Mordent from animal-lac
Colours used in Silk
dyeing
 
White 
 If a bright white was required, the silk had to be

washed twice in a soap solution of 30 pounds of

soap per 100 pounds of silk. During this boiling
process, indigo was added to give it extra
brightness. For the very highest grade of
whiteness, the silk was put in a sealed room in
which sulfur was burned. For eight hours, the silk
was exposed to the fumes of the sulfur. One to two
pounds of sulfur was enough the give 100 pounds
of silk the desired brightness.
 Blue
 
 The silk-dyer used eight pounds of indigo, six pounds of very
pure potash, two pounds of madder, and eight pounds of bran.
 The bran was washed
 It was put on the bottom of the kettle. In another kettle, the
madder and potash were cooked for 15 minutes. The indigo,
which had been soaking in warm water for two days, was
crushed in a mortar until it became a smooth paste that could
be mixed with the other ingredients and poured onto the bran.
 After this mixture was stirred thoroughly, it was allowed to cool
to a lukewarm temperature.
 When it turned a little greenish, it was stirred again and left
alone for 3 or 4 hours.
 Silk that was to be dyed blue did not need the aluminum sulfate
bath, because the indigo already contained enough salts to
allow the threads to absorb the dye.
 
Yellow

 In order to produce yellow dye, the dyer

mainly used the roots of the mignonette
(reseda luteola) plant.
 For each pound of silk he needed two
pounds of this plant. It was cooked for
twenty minutes, then filtered through a
sieve into another tub.
 After this solution had cooled to lukewarm,
it was ready to be used.
 Orange

 The rocou plant was used to make the color orange.

Originating in the Caribbean the Rocou plant was called
"bija" by early Caribbean Indians, thus the plants's current
scientific name: Bixa.
 Its crimson seeds were crushed together to make a red
body paint that had a religious and magical significance
to many tribes. To be used as a dye, rocou had to be
dissolved in alkaline salt, such as potash.
 Thus, silk to be dyes with rocou did not need a prior bath
in aluminum sulfate. If silk immersed in rocou solution
turned red, that meant more potash should be added. 
Carmine-red 

 This color was derived from Cochineal, which was the

dried scale-insect Coccus cacti, which lived on certain of
the cactus plants of Mexico and elsewhere.
 Once the Cochineal had cooked, one ounce of cream of
tartar and one ounce of tin were added per pound of
Cochineal, to make the color a bit more yellow. 
 There was a second way to produce the carmine color.
That was a process similar to the way orange dye was
made from the rocou plant. The only problem was that
the use of cream of tartar as a color enhancer did not
have that same amazing effect as it had with Cochineal.
Some dyers had found a solution for that by using white
oak galls, which had about the same effect.
 Oak galls also produced an extra softness, similar to
what cream of tartar could give to the silk. 
ECO-FRIENDLY TESTING

 After the natural dyeing process is over

it is time for testing the fabric. The
testing of the fabric is done to test the
fastness of color. The fastness of the
color is tested in three different ways : 
 Washing fastness
 Dyeing fastness
 Rubbing fastness
 Advantage
 Utilizing natural dyes to impart color onto fabric has a number of
advantages over synthetic dyes.
 Natural dyes are generally more eco-friendly than synthetic dyes.
Synthetic dyeing procedures can be polluting and certain diazo dyes are
carcinogenetic.
 Almost all natural dyes are free of azo compounds which are
carcinogenetic.
 Most natural dyes are known antioxidants.
 Clothes dyed with natural dyes have the potential to be sold at a higher
price.
 Depending on the dyeing procedure and the type of mordant used, a
variety of colors can be produced using one natural dye source. Each
natural dye source provides an amazing diversity of shades. From one dye
you may obtain between 5-15 varying colors and shades.
 Natural dyes are seen as more eco-friendly since, unlike their synthetic
counterparts, they are all derived from natural sources.
 Inconsistencies in color could be marketed as unique or one of a kind.
 Disadvantage
 The quality and effectiveness of natural dyestuffs depends upon a great many
factors.
 Natural dyes have limited availability.
 natural dyes are obtained from plants and are dependent on growing seasons.
 Although natural dyes initially produce bright colours in a variety of shades,
fabrics tend to fade quicker than fabrics colored with synthetic dyes when
exposed to light and home laundering.
 Consistency of color is a challenge when dyeing with natural dyes. No two dye
lots are identical, due to impurities in the natural dyes.
 Some mordants may present unacceptable levels of toxicity. The more toxic
mordants, such as chromium and tin, are required for some of the brighter
colors. It is important to note that not all mordents are toxic, for example, alum
is relatively safe to use, though not entirely non-toxic.
 Although some fibers, such as silk and wool, can be colored simply by being
dipped in the dye, others fibers such as cotton require a mordant.
 Synthetic fibers usually cannot be dyed with natural dyes.
Conclusion
 natural dyes are an eco-friendly way to
impart almost any colour to a textile
product.
 With the recent interest in
environmental concerns, natural dyes
might be a good way to produce unique
products with a green slant.
THANK
YOU