Preparation, Characterization and Utilization of Keratinous and Nano-Keratinous Materials as a Binder in Pigment Printing of Man-Made Fibres and Their Blends

Abstract

In the textile printing field, synthetic binders are essential component in pigment printing paste. Most of the commercial binders are environmentally unfriendly and imported from abroad which makes them bad choice economically and environmentally. This work is devoted to preparation, characterization and utilization of extracted keratin, from cheap renewable natural resources namely; coarse Egyptian wool fleece or feather. The extracted keratin is used as soluble keratin or precipitated and used in nano-form or suspension form. These forms of keratin were used as binders in pigment printing paste for polyester, pure poly acrylic, viscose as well as polyester/viscose, and polyester/acrylic fabrics and their effect on , color strength, fastness properties and bending stiffness of the printed fabrics were studied and compared to the commercial binder. Chemical, physical and thermal properties of the prepared binders were also assessed and compared to those of both commercial binder and native wool. Different mixtures of the prepared keratin-based binder with a commercial binder were prepared and utilized in pigment printing. Color strength, fastness properties and bending stiffness of printed fabrics were assessed. Results of this study showed that fabrics printed using a printing paste contains keratin-based binder gave almost similar results in color strength and fastness properties to those printed in presence of commercial binder. The rubbing fastness of the printed fabrics with keratin-based binders was satisfactory. Mixing keratin-based binders with commercial binders was carried out to enhance the rubbing fastness of fabrics printed in presence of former and improve the stiffness resulted from using the latter for the same purpose, it was also noticed that all the pastes exhibited good rheological properties enabled the prepared binders to be used in silk screen or roller printing method.