Reverse Micellar Dyeing of Wool Fabric with Reactive Dyes

The approach of using reverse micelle with nonionic surfactant (poly(ethylene glycol), PEG)) as building block has been employed to investigate dyeability of wool fabrics with reactive dyes in a one-bath non-aqueous solvent system. Three colours were used and they were encapsulated in the core of the PEG-based reverse micelle under optimised process parameters (i.e. (i) Solvent volume to wool fabric weight ratio (v/w)=10:1; (ii) Surfactant/water mole ratio=0.04:1; (iii) Surfactant/co-surfactant mole ratio=l:8; (iv) Volume of water-pool for dye=0.5 ml; (v) Dyeing time=50 minutes; and (vi) Dyeing temperature=88 °C). Comparison of non-aqueous and aqueous-based (water-based) dyeing was conducted in terms of dyeability as reflected by colour yield and colour fastness properties. Experimental results revealed that the reverse micellar non-aqueous dyeing system can provide a better dyeing performance than aqueous-based dyeing system.