Black walnut, Osage orange and eastern redcedar sawmill waste as natural dyes: effect of aluminum mordant on color parameters

Abstract

The triple bottom line can be impacted in both positive and negative ways by the use of tree sawmill waste as a natural dye. Trees contain a biomordant in the form of tannin which may eliminate the need for metallic mordants, thus reducing water, thermal energy, residual waste, and exposure to a mordant chemical. Dyeing with mill waste provides an economic option for an existing timber manufacturing byproduct. This research analyzed the impact of potassium aluminum sulfate (PAS) on dye concentration, hue, and colorfastness to light and laundering for three regional dyewoods (black walnut, Osage orange, and eastern redcedar) on wool yarn. Dye concentrations were pre-tested to find a standard depth of shade between mordanted and nonmordanted yarns. Tests for colorfastness to light and laundering were performed according to AATCC methods. Resulting colors for exposed and unexposed specimens were rated using CIE L*a*b* values and descriptive statistics were used to examine directional relationship within independent variables mordant and exposure (light and laundering). Two-sample t test was performed to investigate the effect of a PAS mordant versus no mordant on overall color difference between specimens exposed to light and laundering. Findings indicated that dye absorption was improved with the use of a PAS mordant. For yarns premordanted with PAS the dyewood colors became warmer. A PAS mordant slightly improved colorfastness to light for black walnut and eastern redcedar, but did not influence Osage orange which had a color change from bright yellow to warm brown after exposure to light. Colorfastness to laundering improved only for Osage orange with a PAS mordant.

Effects of tannin mordanting on coloring and functionalities of wool fabrics dyed with spent coffee grounds

“…Therefore, it was observed that tannin mordanting improved color fastness to light rather than color change of the wool fabrics dyed with spent coffee extract. This result was supported by the previous reports that "tannin mordants and dyes may darken dyed textiles as they age, instead of the color fading due to exposure to washing and light (Cardon 2007;Richards and Tyrl 2005)" (Doty et al 2016). Figure 3 shows the results obtained by infrared spectroscopy analyses of the wool fabrics dyed with spent coffee extract.…”

Review on Natural Dyes for Textiles from Wastes

“…This on one hand leads to wastage of resources, and on the other hand their disposal poses a serious threat to the environment. Effective utilisation of this agro-waste utilisation would not only address disposal issues, but also provide additional income to the farmers or processing industries that generate the waste [29].…”

“…Eucalyptus liquid waste from lumber steaming has been used by to dye cotton [51]. Sawmill waste from Kansas black walnut, osage orange, and eastern red cedar timber have been used as dyestuffs for textiles [29]. Waste bark extracts from Turkish red pine (Pinus brutia Ten) have been applied on cotton, flax, wool, tencel, polyamide and acrylic [46].…”

#NaturalDye

“…However, environmentalists and scientists point out that synthetic dyes pollute water and soil (Brigden et al, 2012;Gregory, 2007). Environmental concerns have led to a growing demand for ecologically friendly textile processes and have increased interest in natural dyes because they are a biodegradable source of color (Bechtold & Mussak, 2009;Doty et al, 2016;Laughlin, 2017;Schneider-Levy, 2018). Those interested in natural dyes can learn from others on social media platforms such as Instagram, where individuals and communities provide a space to connect and share knowledge (Gauntlett, 2018).…”