Study of Dyestuff in Non-aqueous Solvent Medium for Textile Dyeing

This project aims to explore the use of different non-aqueous solvent medium (NASM) to enhance the dyeing performance in order to dye natural materials. Textile manufacturing processes with conventional wet-chemical processes, especially for the dyeing, printing and finishing of textile, have long been one of the main environmental pollution sources due to the discharge of large amounts of wastewater to environment.

In traditional dyeing process, water acts as a solvent medium to dissolve the dyestuff and to bring the dyestuff to the substrate for conducting the dyeing process. Due to limited water resources, more and more researchers are investigating substitutes to replace water, such as supercritical fluid carbon dioxide (SCF-CO2), different types of organic solvent, etc. However, there are still limitation on existing non-aqueous dyeing research approach, especially for natural fibres. It is expected that the success of this project can further expand the use of NASM for sustainable dyeing.