Salt-free dyeability of thiourea grafted cotton fabric

In this study salt-free dyeing cotton fabric was achieved by grafting thiourea to cotton fibers, where the thiourea grafted cotton fabric (TUGCF) was prepared by epoxidizing cotton fibers with epichlorohydrin in water and subsequently grafting in aqueous solution of thiourea. Fourier transform infrared spectra (FTIR) and XPS of the TUGCF indicated that a great amount of epoxy groups from the epoxidized cotton fibers reacted with amino groups from thiourea. The TUGCF fabric prepared at the optimum condition and subsequently dyed with reactive dyes in the absence of salt displayed significantly enhanced color strength, showing better dyeing properties when compared with the untreated cotton fabric dyed with conventional methods, in terms of washing fastness, rubbing fastness, and levelness. It was found that the dyeing performance of Reactive Red B-3BF followed a Langmuir-type adsorption curve when used to salt-free dye the TUGCF.