A journey from waste to dyeing of wool

Abstract

Waste management has become a critical issue for sustainable development in manufacturing industries and therefore in textile processing. In the light of this argument an approach for the valorization of a waste come out in yarn spinning processes is presented in this paper. The waste valorized in this context is the dust absorbed from the spinning mill by air conditioners during yarn production. The "air conditioning dust (ACD)" belongs to a cotton yarn spinning line was subjected to a dye extraction process by soxhlet and the solution obtained from the extraction period was used in the coloration of the wool. It was observed that ACD has potential for the coloration of the wool in brown shades. Since the waste was assumed as containing cellulosic structures along with some other dust, the process was called as natural dyeing and different mordants during the dyeings were tested. Additionally, the different dye bath pHs were investigated too. For the evaluation of the results, fastness values and the color analysis of the dyed samples were conducted. It was observed that the ACD has the potential for the coloration of the wool and so can be valorized by this way.