A novel and integrated approach to dyeing recycled cotton and chitosan yarns blended fabrics with innovative nanobubble technology

Abstract

In order to reduce the environmental impacts caused by the increasing consumption to meet the textile needs of the world growing population, sustainable production in textiles has to be taken very seriously. Recycling and innovative technologies are some of the key factors for sustainable textile production. Cotton and chitosan are widely used biomaterials in textiles. Additionally, using nanobubbles is an innovative water technology that has an increasing usage potential in different areas recently. Herein, the dyeing behavior and environmental effects of recycled cotton and chitosan yarns blends in different proportions were investigated in the presence of nanobubble technology. Increasing amount of chitosan in the blend increased the band intensities in FTIR. When the chitosan ratio in the mixture was increased to 25% (in 1% o.w.f. dyeing), the color strength increased by 70%. In other words, the use of chitosan in the mixture could have provided similar color strengths with less dye consumption. Moreover, the negative effect of nanobubbles on color strength could have been compensated by the use of chitosan. The transmittance of dyeing baths containing nanobubbles was lower than those without nanobubbles because of its removing effect of unfixed/hydrolyzed dye molecules from fibers. The chemical oxygen demand of dyeing baths also improved by about 15% with nanobubbles. The summary of the study was that environment-friendly processes could be designed by dyeing blended yarns consisting of superior biopolymer chitosan and recycled cotton obtained by reusing the natural resource with nanobubbles.