Dyeing of synthetic fiber-based wool blended fabrics in supercritical carbon dioxide

Development of supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) dyeing technology for natural fabrics and their blended fabrics is essential for the textile industry due to environmental and economic considerations. Wool (W), polyester (PET) and nylon (N) fabrics and their wool/polyester (W/PET) and wool/nylon (W/N) blended fabrics were dyed in SC-CO2 medium with a synthesized reactive disperse dye containing a vinylsulphone (VS) reactive group, which behaves as a disperse dye for synthetic fibers and a reactive dye for protein fibers. The SC-CO2 dyeing performance of all fabrics was investigated in terms of color strength, fixation, colorimetric and fastness measurements and compared with the conventional aqueous dyeing method. The results obtained indicate that the VS reactive disperse dye structure and non-polar PET component mainly improved colour strength (K/S) values of the dyed PET fabric and W/PET blended fabrics in SC-CO2 compared with those in the aqueous medium. Also, SC-CO2 dyeing has a notable influence on a*, b* and C* values of the dyed PET, N and W/PET fabrics and showed that the uptake of the VS reactive disperse dye and their appearance colors are higher and more saturated than the aqueous dyed samples. The levelling and fastness properties of all dyed fabrics in SC-CO2 medium are similar to those obtained in the aqueous medium. It was observed that VS reactive disperse dye penetrates well into the PET fabric and is chemically bound with the W fabric using both SC-CO2 and aqueous media and did not display significant color difference (triangle E) values of W, PET and W/PET fabrics even after 20 washing cycles. The study claims that the VS reactive disperse dye structure and dyed PET-based wool blended fabric are good candidates for industrially SC-CO2 dyeing technology.