A promising perspective to upgrade cotton dyeing performances when dyedwith a red fluorescent pigment

This paper studied the dyeing with a fluorescent red pigment, and several dyeing performance problems were detected. This research aims to improve these performances, particularly those of dyeing fastness. Various surface treatments have been applied to bleached cotton fabrics to do this. Two commercial agents have been used, namely ST1 and ST2, which are essentially quaternary ammonium preparations with a cationic character. In addition, the dyeing process parameters have been studied, namely, the dyeing temperature, time and pH, to achieve the best conditions allowing acceptable dyeing performances with the fluorescent red pigment. Moreover, SEM images were taken for treated and untreated cotton fabrics, and no great morphological differences were detected. Finally, dyeing performances were evaluated based on the measurement of colourimetric coordinates, colour yield K/S and dyeing fastness properties. Very promising results have been found following a surface treatment with 8% of the agent ST1, a dyeing process of 30 inutes at 50°C for a pH of 8.