REACTIVE DYEING PROPERTIES OF COTTON FABRIC USING SEA WATER
Textile dyeing, Sea water, Cotton, Coloristic strength.
The textile industry is a sector completely dependent on water for its full functioning, and its productive processes have a very high water cost. In the área of textile chemical processing, desizing, bleaching, dyeing and subsequente washes are mainly responsible for the large consumption of water. On the opposite side to this high consumption there is an evident water crisis in the worldwide. Nowadays it’s already reality the shortage in otaining fresh water, consequece of the pollution, climatic aspects and the little availability of this type of water in the planet. This fact has led many problems to the textile companies, mainly for the preparation and dyeing sectors. Therefore, this paper focuses on an ecologically friendly alternative for cellulosic fiber dyeing processes, to evaluate the use of seawater in the dyeing cotton fabrics with reactive dye in three primary colors (blue, yellow and red), comparing them with processes using distilled water. As a result it was possible to observe that sea water in the dyeing process does not detract from important characteristics of the fabrics such as tensile strength and elongation. Besides that, after optimizing the process the sea-dyed samples exhibit good uniformity and satisfactory washing and rubbing fastness properties compared to the conventional process. Thereby, it was verified that the use of marine water in textile dyeing can be a valid alternative with high application potential.