NATURAL DYE EXTRACTION --------Article by K. Tejasri

Are you people excited in extracting dye naturally from different parts of the plant.....?🤠

Various plant parts which can be used as source for extracting dye naturally 👯 and  especially from Horticultural plants:

Natural dye sources:----

      The few natural dye yielding sources are cultivated as commercial crops, few as fencing crops and few can be collected from civil forests areas. Whatever may be the source, they need to be checked out having any unwanted and spoiled materials. Once, procured, raw materials need to be stored in cool, dry place avoiding direct sunlight.

And how can we extract natural colour from those plant parts ?  Various procedures followed in extracting them🎨

Extraction of colour from sources:---

     Natural dye materials like flowers, roots, leaves, barks, rind, seeds are extracted with aqueous method and alkaline methods to get the natural pigments.Hard sources need to be soaked overnight and boiled and rest of the sources can be directly boiled in quantity of water. In alkaline extraction, pH is maintained to extract the more quantity of pigment into extraction media(water). The boiled and softened raw materials need to be separated from its liquid extraction by squeezing. The liquid extracted from natural dye source need to be evaporated and condensed up to required consistency for various applications like preparation of surface paints, eco coloured powders, dyeing and printing of textiles. 

And in what ways can we use them ?

Let's list out various applications followed using natural dye.

1. Preparation of biodegradable paints from natural dye source.

2. Wet processing of textiles with dried natural dye source.

3. Tie and dye techniques.

1. Preparation of bio degradable paints from natural dye source:

 The following are the steps involved in preparation of biodegradable paints from dried natural dye sources..

 • The thickened extraction is added with natural fillers and resins to maintain the volume, viscosity and colour required. Preservative are also added to have prolonged shelf life of paints.

 • All the mixture is blended vigorously to maintain the stability of the paint prepared.

 • The paint is then filtered for impurities and packed.

 • The prepared bio degradable paints can be used for spraying and brush painting the clay Ganesh idols, clay products including terracotta, pots for plants ,wood and bamboo,paper and mashed pulp products

2. Wet processing of textiles with dried natural dye source:

The following are the steps involved in dyeing and printing of textiles and made-ups from NATURAL dye sources.

• Pre treatment to the textiles (natural fibres )as per the requirement like desizing ,degumming, sourcing followed by myrobalan and mordant treatment as required.

• Natural dye extract is prepared by boiling in required water and pH.

• The pre treated fabrics are dyed by boiling them in natural dye extract.

• The coloured fabrics are washed and finished for usage .

• Similarly,the natural dye extracts are also used in printing of textiles.

3.Tie and dye techniques:

•Tie dyeing is one of the oldest method of resist dyeing method used for decorating the fabric. The resist material used include thread, pebbles,beads,clips, pins,etc. The fabric is tied with thread in areas of resists the colour penetration during dyeing leaving a coloured pattern on a background.

•Light weight fabrics like Georgette ,lawn,cambric,poplin,silk,mulmul,voile,are easiest as they take up the dye quickly.Heavier fabrics can also be used if they are left longer in the dye bath.

Various techniques of tie and dye are used ,some of them are -

•knotting

•tiny dots

•Object resist tying

•Pleating

•Bundling

•Tritic

•Spider web

•Marbling

•multi colour designs

•Opening the thread of tied portion

Method of dyeing:

Dye liquor is calculated based on the weight of the fabric to be dyed. The material: liquor ratio should be 1:20 for cottons,1:40for silks.For every 100gm of cotton material,2 litres of water must be used (100×20=2000)

After treatment:

Steep the dyed material in hot detergent solution (2gms soap or detergent/lit) to fix the dye and to remove the loose dye from the surface.It aids in better colour fastness properties.

LET'S make natural ECO-FRIENDLY colours and paints:) THINK, PLAN, DO

                      😃 THANK YOU😃