The Sustainable Colouration of Merino Wool Yarns with Herbs

Abstract

Alka Madhukar Thakker and Danmei Sun

The Textile industry is the second largest polluter in the world. The European green deal has placed the textile industry at the top priority for establishing sustainability standards for the global benefit to the environment and human health alike. The ESG and CSR are at the core of the sustainability agenda this propels the instigated research towards sustainability in textiles. The research herein experiments with the colouration of merino wool yarns with herbal colours namely tulsi, green tea, and manjistha. The maximum L* value of 70.00 denoted light shade obtained with green tea also K/S of 8.87, a* value of 5.58, and b* value of 31.97 was obtained with green tea. The ATR-FTIR identified densest of phytochemicals in raw tulsi herb in specific the strong C=O stretch of α, β-unsaturated esters were noted at 1729.79 cm-1 and its treated merino wool yarns exhibited a strong C-O stretch of alcohols, carboxylic acids, esters, and ethers at 1232.72 cm-1 wavenumbers. The oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) value of the spent solution after processing the merino wool yarns with herbs in research was transformed from a negative value of -53.4 mV for original water to a positive value of 96.1mV for leftover manjistha root solution, 90.7 mV for leftover green tea solution, and 62.3 mV for a leftover tulsi solution, hence sustainable. Likewise, the dissolved oxygen (DO) of the surplus solutions remained in the acceptable range with the values of 111.0 %, 103.3%, and 95.6 % for leftover solutions of manjistha root, tulsi, and green tea, respectively hence ecological. Life cycle analysis is recommended for the future.

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