(326c) On the Modelling of Fabrics Color Care

The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations, 2022) aim to reduce the stress on natural resources by promoting recycling and establishing a circular economy. One approach is to enhance the durability of products, including textile products which suffer not only mechanical wear and tear but also discoloration. As textiles are washed once and again their colors may fade reducing the acceptability by the users. Developing cleaning products that protect textile colors and extend their lifetime can contribute to the sustainability of the textile industry (Koszewska, 2018), known for its high energy and material consumption. For this reason, evaluating the dyeing process has attracted a lot of attention: the literature has focused on evaluating the kinetics and the mechanism of sorption for typical dyes (Zhao et al., 2022; Gamal et al., 2010). However, there are relatively few studies evaluating the kinetics and mechanisms of dye fading in fabrics (Shojaei et al., 2021; Jiang et al., 2017). Therefore, it is intended to understand the factors and mechanisms involved in the desorption of dyes during the washing to promote the care of fabrics colour.

In this work a rate-based model is developed to understand dye fading in cotton when subjected to a conventional washing process. A set of 11 anionic dyes and 4 nonionic dyes were evaluated, as they are the most used in textile industry. The methodology to unveil the mechanism consists of three stages. First, a statistical analysis based on response surface methodology was carried out to determine the significant factors for each dye. The primary variables considered in the study include washing conditions such as temperature, pH, and washing time, along with the composition of the detergent, specifically the type of bleach and its concentration, as well as the mechanical action. Then, a rate-based model was formulated based on the results of the previous statistical analysis, whose purpose was the prediction of the responses of the dyes of cotton fabrics after the washing process. Finally, the results obtained from the model will be assessed using the validation dataset.

The study demonstrates that temperature is one of the variables that significantly affects the washing process, showing a positive correlation, particularly for Direct Yellow, Disperse Navy, and Acid Red. For Reactive dyes, the interaction between temperature and hypochlorite is very significant. Besides, bleaching agents represent one of the most significant factors, hypochlorite is the one that has the largest impact on colour stability as it acts as a strong oxidative system. Finally, a mechanism based on first-order differential kinetic equation is proposed, obtaining determination coefficients over 0.7 showing that the model has high reliability based on experimental data.

Acknowledgements

We would like to appreciate to the Procter & Gamble Newcastle Innovation Centre (UK) for their contribution in providing the necessary experimental data and software licenses for the research.

References

Gamal, A. M., Farha, S. A. A., Sallam, H. B., Mahmoud, G. E. A., & Ismail, L. F. M. (2010). Kinetic study and equilibrium isotherm analysis of reactive dyes adsorption onto cotton fiber. Nature and Science, 8(11), 95–110.

Ismail, L. F. M., Sallam, H. B., Farha, S. A. A., Gamal, A. M., & Mahmoud, G. E. A. (2014). Adsorption behaviour of direct yellow 50 onto cotton fiber: equilibrium, kinetic and thermodynamic profile. Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy, 131, 657–666. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.saa.2014.03.060

Jiang, F., Dinh, D. M., & Hsieh, Y.-L. (2017). Adsorption and desorption of cationic malachite green dye on cellulose nanofibril aerogels. Carbohydrate Polymers, 173, 286–294. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carbpol.2017.05.097

Koszewska, M. (2018). Circular economy—Challenges for the textile and clothing industry. Autex Research Journal, 18(4), 337–347. https://doi.org/10.1515/aut-2018-0023

Shojaei, S., Shojaei, S., & Band, S. S. (2021). Application of Chemometrics into Removal of Dyes by NaX Nanozeolites: Simultaneous Model.

United Nations. (2022). Take Action for the Sustainable Development Goals - United Nations Sustainable Development. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/

Zhao, X., Wang, B., Jiang, L., Yang, Q., & Liu, J. (2022). Modeling desorption and adsorption kinetics of reactive red 195 in washing microenvironment. Journal of Engineered Fibers and Fabrics, 17, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/15589250221131123