Jatropha flowers: Natural colourant for dyeing of cotton, wool and silk

摘要

The ancient craft of using natural dyes is being revived as weavers, knitters; needle workers rediscover the soft, subtle, lustrous and best of all alive colours though many clear, brilliant colours can also be seen. The natural dyes which are non- pollutant appear as an ideal choice as they are non toxic and their handling is easy. Jatropha integarrima, also known as fire cracker is a tropical evergreen large shrub. It has red flowers arranged in beautiful clusters. In the present study an attempt has been made to optimize various dyeing variables such as extraction medium, extraction time, dyeing time, mordant concentrations and method of mordanting for dyeing of cotton, wool and silk yarns with jatropha flower dye. The present study showed that jatropha dye produced a wide range of soft, lustrous and bright colours on cotton, wool and silk ranging from pink to peach. The dyed material have good colour fastness properties also. The standardized material and methods can be used to produce various dyed products with excellent colour fastness which have growing demand in international export market. As the dyeing procedure is quite ecofriendly and easy in application, the jatropha flower can be exploited as good source of natural dye and can be successfully used to dye cotton, wool and silk.