Will's Science Fair 2006

Comparisons of Dye Performance on Different Fibers
Which Fiber Does Each Dye Work Best On?

Materials and Methods

All of the swatches shown in this document were prepared by my thirteen-year-old son, Will, for his science fair project. The notes I have made here are mine, not his. The photographs of his dyed materials are copyrighted, as is the rest of the material on this page, and may not be copied into anyone else's project as results.

The testing fabric used was a multi-fiber ribbon, 4 inches wide, containing 13 different fibers, manufactured by TestFabrics, Inc. (415 Delaware Avenue, PO Box 26, West Pittston, PA 18643; phone 717-603-0432; fax 717-603-0433), their "Warp Stripe 13 Fiber Fabric". The fabrics are, in order (starting with the black stripe at the top, or from the left side of the chart):

  1. spun diacetate
  2. SEF (Modacrylic)
  3. filament triacetate
  4. bleached cotton
  5. Creslan 61 acrylic
  6. Dacron 54 polyester
  7. Dacron 64 polyester
  8. nylon 66
  9. Orlon 75 acrylic
  10. spun silk
  11. polypropylene (polyolefin)
  12. viscose rayon
  13. worsted wool

Unmordanted samples (except for disperse dye) are indicated by an upper corner cut from the swatch. The mordanted samples were treated by boiling in a 25% by weight of fabric solution of alum (purchased from Aurora Dyes) then cooling overnight. (Note that cotton is better mordanted by treating with alum, then tannic acid, then alum again.) Each swatch is shown with an undyed control swatch. Note that the different undyed fibers are not all perfectly white. The dye intensity was obtained by subtracting the luminosity for a representative section of each fiber strip (avoiding shadows and light spots due to air bubbles during dyeing) from the same value for the corresponding undyed control. Since scans made at different times may vary somewhat in darkness or contrast, every scan included the control, and only the control values from the same scan were used.

All of the dyeing, except for the basic conditions for Procion MX dye and the disperse dye application,, was performed with 1 tablespoon of vinegar per 375 ml. Each swatch was placed in a glass canning jar containing the dyebath and placed in a pot of water which was started cold, brought to a boil, boiled for twenty minutes, then allowed to cool overnight. after the jars were removed from the boiling water bath. The Procion MX acid conditions swatches were treated as above. The Procion MX basic conditions used the exact same dye amount, from the same dye concentrate, asfor the Procion Mx acid conditions, but dyeing was done at room temperature with 5 ml sodium carbonate per 375 ml dyebath. The disperse dye, unlike all others, was not tested with a mordant. A blue Crayola brand fabric crayon was colored onto paper, once heavily and once somwhat lighter, and transfered with a hot dry iron to the fabric swatches.

All of the dye swatches were rinsed after dyeing in cool water, and then laundered in a lingerie bag in hot water with Synthrapol detergent.

Beets

Beets are very popular as a natural dye among those who have never dyed anything, because the color of the dye water looks like a dye. Beets are an extraordinarily poor dye, however. In this case a very large amount of beets (450 grams) was used to dye two small (13 gram) swatches of fabric, and yet the color yielded was a muted tan at best.

On silk an adequate beige was obtained only with the alum mordant. On wool, a good orangish tan was achieved without the mordant, and a darker tan with the alum premordanting. All other fibers either stayed white or acquired at most a pale stain.

Cochineal

Cochineal is clearly an excellent dye. Will used only a small amount of ground cochineal insects. It is also considered to be food-safe, often used to color foods such as strawberry-flavored yogurt. This means that cochineal can be used (without mordanting) even in your good cooking pots, and yet you will still be able to use the pots for food: quite unusual for a dye pot.

Note the pale air bubble on the upper right third of the alum-mordanted swatch (on the right). Alum was of considerable assistance in dyeing rayon and cotton. Nylon, silk, and wool all dyed very well without mordant and even better with it.

Turmeric

Turmeric is the big natural dye surprise here! Every single fiber dyed well with turmeric (though Jill Goodwin writes that it is light-sensitive). The immnediate lesson? Don't spill turmeric-colored food on your clothing! Turmeric worked better without a mordant on nylon 66, but the modant evidently aided the turmeric in dyeing synthetic fibers.

Disperse Dye

Disperse dye works great on synthetics, of course - that's what it's for. Only wool, rayon, silk, and cotton refused to take it. Nylon works very much like silk and wool with other dyes, but it is very unlike them in its love for disperse dye. Note that the weft fiber is a synthetic that dyed with disperse dye, so there is some darkness behind the mostly undyed natural fibers.

Procion MX Dye Under Acid Conditions

The same dye was used for the Procion swatches, in the identical concentration and at the same time. Note how much darker the acid-dyed swatches got! This might be because the soda-ash swatches were dyed at room temperature (21 degrees C) while the others were boiled. Or, it might be due to anothe reason.

Mordanting made no difference at all to the performance of Procion MX dye.

Cellulose fibers did not dye at all with Procion MX dye under acid conditions; neither did the synthetic fibersdyes other than nylon.

Nylon 66, silk, and wool all love Procion Blue MX-R (reactive blue 4) under hot acid conditions.

Interetsingly, Diacetate picked up a pale but unmistakable pink color when dyed with Procion MX dye under hot acid conditions. It must be binding to the chromophore section in order to affect the color.

Procion MX Dye Under Basic Conditions

Wool and silk both dye as well under basic conditions as cotton and rayon do, but the wool section felt fuzzier afterwards, reflecting the damage done by a high pH to wool.

What appears to be a slight color shift on silk and wool turns out on closer examination to be merely the effect of the yellower starting color of the undyed fibers. Only dyes which are mixtures of two or more colors show a true color shuift on different fibers, but such a color shift can be quite pronounced, due to different affinities of the different dye colors for the different fibers.

Comparisons of Different Dyes on Each Fiber
What Type of Dye Does The Fiber Prefer?

Natural Fibers

Wool likes cochineal and acid Procion MX a lot, reflecting what we know already about its preference for acid dyes.

Silk loves dye. Cochineal and acid Mx are the best, but basic MX and turmeric are intense, too.

Cotton prefers basic MX. Cotton also likes cochineal and turmeric, but only if they are mordanted.

Rayon, like cotton, likes mordanted cochineal, basic MX dye, and mordanted turmeric. (Rayon is a synthetic fiber, but it is a true cellulose fiber and thus closely resembles mercerized cotton.)

Synthetic Fibers

Nylon loves acid dyes (including cochineal and acid MX) and also disperse dyes.

All of the synthetic fibers except for nylon and rayon like disperse dye the best, and mordanted turmeric somewhat.

Combinations

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