Abstract

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The study investigated the influence of selected mordants and mordanting techniques on dyeing of cellulosic fabric with natural flavonoid dye extracted from onion outer scale. It was an effort to utilize the waste material in an efficient manner which could minimize the cost of dyeing. Aqueous extraction technique was used for the dye extraction. The selected mordants used are alum, potassium dichromate, ferrous sulphate and a mango bark. The three mordanting techniques which includes, chrome mordant process, metachrome process and after-chrome process were adopted. The dye obtained was characterized by colour, melting point, pH, UV-visible and Fourier Transform Infra-red (FTIR) spectrophotometry. The dye was applied on cotton cellulose and the results obtained show multiple colours owing to different mordants used. In all cases, after-chrome process gave the best colour characteristics with the most brilliant colours on fabrics and good colour fastness with all mordants.

Keywords: Mordants, Flavonoid, Aqueous, Spectrophotometry and Colours