An Evaluation on the Salt-free Reactive Dyeing Property of Modified Cotton Fabric with Cationic Chicken Feather Keratin Agent

A novel cationic modifying chicken feather keratin agent (named WLS-10) was synthesized with chicken-feather protein and another self made linking modifying cationic agent (named WLS). The structure of the synthesized agent was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FUR) then it was applied to a woven cotton fabric pretreatment for salt-free reactive dyeing. The dyeing effectiveness of the cotton fabric modified by WLS-10 dyed in the absence of salt was evaluated and compared with that of the cotton fabric modified by WLS dyed in the absence of salt and compared with that of the unmodified cotton fabric dyed in the presence of salt. The results indicated that the modified cotton fabric with WLS-10 dyed in the salt-free exhibited the highest color strength value (K/S), dye up-take (E), fixation of adsorbed dye (F) and the total fixation of the original applied dye (7) among the three fabrics. And the WLS-10 modified cotton fabric did not decrease the color fastness and the level-dyeing property. It can be seen that WLS-10 is a better salt-free reactive dyeing auxiliary than WLS.