UTILIZING NATURAL COLORANTS OF BROWN SEAWEEDS IN BIOACTIVE FABRIC DYEING

Abstract

The current investigation was carried out to develop a sustainable dyeing method by utilization of marine brown seaweed as natural dye. Moreover, the dyeing process was optimized by varying fixing agent percentage and dyeing time. The influence of different variable on color uptake (K/S), fastness rating and color measurement were examined. The bioactive efficiency of seaweed extract and dyed fabric were also investigated against human pathogens such as Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Candida albicans and results were compared with commercial antibacterial and antifungal drugs. It was found that, the optimized dyeing condition has 1% formic acid as fixing agent with 120 min dyeing cycle. At this condition, the dye molecule shows higher exhaustion and fixation % along with acceptable fastness and antimicrobial activity. Furthermore, the dyed fabric shows effective inhibition against all test organisms. Fabric samples showed greater antimicrobial efficiency for Candida albicans and least for Escherichia coli.