Enhancement of reactive dye uptake on cellulose fabric with chitosan

Abstract

The pretreatment of cotton fabrics with chitosan improved the reactive dyes uptake and lowered the concentration of salt required in the dyeing process. Oxidation of cotton fabric with KIO4 followed by reductive amination with chitosan led to the highest chitosan content in the fabric analyzed by Kjeldahl nitrogen analysis technique. The %exhaustion and color yield (K/S) in the dyeing process rith mono-chloro-triazine and vinyl sulphone reactive dyes showed that this method of fabric modification considerably improved dye uptake of the fabric. The chitosan-modified fabric had no discernable adverse color fastness properties. The improvement of dye uptake brought about an improved dyeing process in which the dye and salt used could be reduced by half and 14% respectively.