Eco-friendly dyeing of cotton fabric with waste tea leaves-based tannin natural dye

Natural products have always been appreciated due to the awareness about environmental standards for global health by using green technologies in their isolation and extraction. Thereupon natural dyes have been used in all fields due to having ecofriendly, therapeutic and aesthetic nature. For the current study, microwave radiations (MW) have been used as a green extraction tool to explore the natural coloring potency of Tea leaves for the dyeing of cotton fabrics. For isolation of natural dye from tea leaves in aqueous and basic media MW irradiation for 1-6 min has been given and used to dye cotton fabric. It has been evaluated that an increase in color yield (K/S) with the use of 6 min of microwave energy when basic extract of tea leaves was used to dye onto cotton fabric. It has been also revealed that in the case of the pre-mordanting method, 6% of Cu and 8% of Fe as a post mordanting method give the best fastness properties and the highest color yields. It is concluded that MW energy has an excellent ability for isolation of colorant from Tea leaves for dyeing of cotton fabric under reduced optimal dyeing conditions.