Color Fastness Properties of Silk Fibers Dyed with Cationic Dyes and Treated with ZnO Nanoparticles

Natural silk is excellent clothing materials with outstanding mechanical and aesthetics characteristics due to production of precious textile goods. However, silk lacks some important performance properties, such as wrinkle recovery, wash and wear, light stability, thermal stability, abrasion resistance and also water staining character which seriously impedes the general use of silk. Silk goods imposed to UV radiation undergo color fading and mechanical degradation. Some acid dyes which are widely used in dyeing silk fibers are sensitive to light. In aim of this research is to improve the light stability of silk fibers dyed with acid dye using ZnO nanoparticles. The silk fibers were scoured, dyed with acid dye and then coated with ZnO nanoparticles. The dip- pad- cure and formation methods were employed to make nano- crystals of ZnO on the fiber. SEM, EDAX and ash content were used to study the nano- ZnO coating on silk fibers. The colorimetric properties of coated fibers were measured. The effects of ZnO nanoparticles on CIELAB color coordinates. The wash and light fastness properties of samples were evaluated according to Standard ISO 105-CO5, daylight 105-BO1