Indigo dyeing machinery: The concept - Dyes & Chemicals - Express TextileIssue

dated - 4th September. 2003

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Indigo dyeing machinery: The concept

Indigo in its natural form has been used for dyeing for about 5000
years. Today, most indigo is used for dyeing cotton yarns for the
warp of woven denim fabric on continuous dyeing ranges. Prakash D
Pardeshi elucidates on the concept.
The indigofera plant yields large amount of purer dyestuff. Indigo
was extracted from plants later to be replaced by synthetic indigo
onto the market. Actually, the principle of dyeing indigo has never
changed.
Dissolving the dye by reduction involving vatting and loosening
up.
Dyeing from the vat.
Oxidising in the air.
Since indigo has a low affinity for cotton, deep blue dyeings are
only obtained when dyeing and oxidising are repeated several times.
Today, most indigo is used for dyeing cotton yarns for the warp of
woven denim fabric on continuous dyeing ranges. These ball warps,
300-400 threads per rope, are placed in holders in front of the
machine in a staggered arrangement, so that when the rope runs into
the first wetting bath, the feeding angle of the individual ropes
differs only slightly. This prevents varying thread tensions.
Continuous dyeing, without stopping the machines lots of changes are
possible since at the end of the ball warps, the rope can be joined
to the warp ends of new ball warps. The thread tension is of special
significance, because different thread tensions cause varying dyeing
effects in the yarn, resulting in reediness. Normally, a rope dyeing
machine has 3-4 wetting troughs. Depending on the required extent of
precleaning, additional scouring at the boil is necessary and in
this case, four troughs are required for post-rinsing. Approximately
10-18 kg warp/minute can be dyed on rope dyeing machines.
For complete oxidation of dye, also inside the rope, this must be
followed by an extended air passage - over two levels, if necessary.
The oxidation time is about 1-2 minutes on rope dyeing ranges. Until
now, it was usual to work with five dye becks. However, new machines
have eight becks, the advantage being that the indigo bath
concentration is less and the same depth of colour is obtained. This
means that finer indigo layers are formed on the yarn, giving two
advantages. They are:
During the first immersion passage, less indigo penetrates into
the yarn, achieving a higher white content of the yarn core,
ultimately leading to ring dyed effect.
The fine indigo layers give a somewhat better fastness to abrasion
and washing.
Dyeing and oxidising are followed by 2-3 rinsing baths. Normally,
rinsing at room temperature is adequate. It should be ensured that
per kg of warp yarn, at least 3-4 litres of water per rinsing beck
is sprayed with some force against the warp. It has already been
mentioned that to achieve full colours, indigo has to be applied in
several steps. There are basically two different types of machines
namely: rope and open warp dyeing machines. Rope dyeing was started
in the US. Later in Europe, dyeing of the open warp started, this
being dried, sized and wound directly onto the warp beam for
weaving, all in one operation. These two types of dyeing machines
are still used today with some modifications when dyeing the open
warp.
Rope dyeing machines
These are very conspicuous by virtue of their dimensions. Machines
of this kind can be upto 60 metre long. The yarns for the warp rope
are drawn-off of cross wound bobbins and wound onto ball warps, on
so called ball warpers. The rope length can be upto 25,000 metres.
If rising is carried out at temperatures of around 50 degree C, an
unnecessary amount of dye is removed. Rope dyeing does not finish
with the rinsing process. This is followed by a softening bath in
which usually 0.5-1 per cent dry substance of a cationic softener is
applied to the yarn. This application serves to aid opening of the
rope to give a long chain beamer. Here the rope is opened
sufficiently so that individual threads, which are paralleled by
means of a comb, can be wound onto the sizing beam. Even with a
perfect yarn and an effective softener, the efficiency of such a
beamer is often below 50 per cent.
The capacity of rope dyeing machine is between 12, 24 and 36 ropes,
depending on the size and width. If the number of threads of a
dyeing machine for open warp dyeing is compared with that of a rope
dyeing machine, the following ensues:
Rope dyeing machine: 4800/9600/14400 threads.
Open warp dyeing machine: 3800-4200 threads.
With 36 ropes, the material through flow is three and a half times
as great as an open warp dyeing machine. The squeezing units on rope
dyeing machines are of appropriate dimension. These squeezers have a
rubber roll with counter steel roll. The pressures depend on the
function of the squeezer. After the last wetting bath, squeezing
takes place at 10 bar and the following squeezers have a slightly
lower pressure, so that the yarn can pick up dye liquor. With 10 bar
pressure, the rinsing liquor of the last rinsing bath is squeezed
out before the ropes enter the softening bath. All other squeezing
pressures are around 4-6 bar.
Open warp dyeing machine
In the first half of 1970s, a second type of dyeing machine was
developed in Europe, on which in stead of ropes, the warp threads
are processed lying parallel to each other. Sizing directly follows
dyeing. This type of dyeing machine is also called a �slasher� like
sizing machine. The reason of this is probably that sizers also
experimented on their machine with combined sizing and dyeing. Hence
trials were carried out both with pigment dyestuffs and with indigo.
If indigo is applied as a pigment in the size, a dull blue grey
results. It was, therefore, obvious that the machine builders were
called on to design a separate dyeing machine to be installed in
front of the sizing machine.
As with the rope dyeing machine, the slasher machines also have
advantages and disadvantages. Advantages are;
The open warp dyeing machine is smaller than a rope dyeing
machine, which means that the prime costs are lower.
Rope opening is avoided.
 Owing to the paralleled warp threads, the wetting process is
shorter and a wetting trough may be adequate.
The immersion and oxidation times are much shorter.
Setting up or stabilisation of the dye baths is effected faster.
The holding capacity of the vat is seldom more than 800 litres.
Disadvantages are:
Unlike rope dyeing, when dyeing the open warp, there is no
friction between the threads in the vicinity of the guide rollers.
Hence the rub and wash fastness standards of rope dyeing are often
not achieved.
The hydrosulphite consumption is much higher owing to the greater
surface of the textile goods.
If the individual processing stages of a slasher are considered, 1-2
wetting vats, 4-8 dye becks and 3 rinsing troughs are required. The
immersion and oxidation times lie between 10-20s or 45-60s.
Double sheet dyeing
By this method, a further development from sheet dyeing - the dyeing
and sizing processes are performed separately. Twice the numbers of
single warps are presented to the dyeing range. The dyed, oxidised
and dried single warps are taken upon two batches corresponding to
the total number of ends. These are then presented to sizing
machine. Production is almost doubled in this way.
Loop dyeing machine
A variation of the open warp dyeing machine is the �Loop dye 1 for
6� dyeing machine built by Kusters, USA. During the immersion
passages, the warp is fed back to the same dye bath following
oxidation. This makes the machine much shorter and the hydrosulphite
consumption is much lower. It comprises 8 to 16 warp beams,
threading-in feature, pre-wetting or pre-mercerising sections or
pre-dyeing unit, the �Twin Pad� colour applicator, an integrated
airing passage and two rinsing sections as well as an accumulator
scray.
Black and coloured warp dyeings
The machine is particularly suitable for black and coloured warp
dyeing with sulphur dyestuffs. By means of a few valve adjustments,
the dye bath volume in the dyeing trough �Twin Pad� can be reduced
to only 250 litres from the 750 litres of dye liquor required for
indigo. This prevents the dreaded, so called head-tail shading,
which can ccur due to the relatively high sulphur/dyestuff affinity
with large dye bath volumes. The repeated immersion and oxidation of
the sulphur dyestuff produces deep and full shade which can only be
achieved with an additional steamer, in the case of black denim warp
threads on sizing ranges.
Multicolour dyeing machine
For many years, Sucker-Muller has been among the largest sellers of
indigo dyeing lines. They have undertaken modification of
conventional indigo ranges to accommodate multicolour dyeing system.
Thanks to the shape of the troughs and the circulation
configuration, deposits of sediments and lint are avoided. The
immersion time and trough content can be widely varied, like one to
eight seconds immersion time and 150 to 600litres capacity,
corresponding to the build-up rate of the dyestuffs. Modifications
are made to the liquor circulation in the troughs, the liquor
holding capacity and dispensing of dyes and auxiliaries to
facilitate multicolour dyeing. Indigo and other colours are fed from
two separate circuits.
In case of indigo dyeing, the dye is applied in �thin layers�
without considerable dyestuff excess, which then has to be reduced
again. Thus hydrosulphite is economised, and the small amount of
free, not fixed indigo dyestuff, which has to be removed, is washed
off in the subsequent washing process. More and more often, a
caustic soda/mercerising device is incorporated between the wetting
trough and the indigo dyeing line. Subsequently, the warp must be
neutralised again in 2-3 washing troughs, whereupon it is fed into
the indigo liquor with a pH value of 8-9. Owing to the swelling
process of the yarn, dyeing can only takes place at the marginal
zones of the threads, since the macromolecular indigo dyestuff
cannot penetrate any deeper into the inner yarn cross section. The
ring dyeing process is beneficial to the fashionable effect, which
can be achieved by abrasion as in the case of stone washed fabric.
Often pre dyeing with sulphur dyestuff results in a darker colouring
of the denim. By appropriate metering of the dyestuffs and liquor
channeling into separate troughs, it is possible to compose multi
colour vessel lines for different colourings. Thus plants could be
designed where, apart from indigo dye and depending on market trends
and demands, dyeing with vat, sulphur, naphthol or other dyestuffs
is feasible.
Continuous dyeing machine
Classic indigo dyeing is more in demand than ever before. The focus
has shifted, however, over the last 20 years from indigo dyed
working cloths to denim fashion wear and practical leisure wear.
Fashionable clothing requires machine technology to adapt flexibly
to changing trends.
The modular multi-vat design and new, improved technology of
Sucker-Muller-Hacoba continuous warp dyeing machine helps to achieve
supreme dyeing and sizing quality. Exact metering, measured use of
dyes, and low dye and chemical losses make certain of economical and
environmentally compatible dyeing. The salient features of the
machine include:
Optimum dye fastness and uniform dyeing.
Perfect yarn and warp control from the package to the loom.
High dye batch stability ensured by cross flow circulation and
continuous metering.
Reproducible computerised process management.
Multi color capability achieved by flexible process engineering.
Individual warp pre-treatment.
Environmentally compatible, due to low consumption of dyes and
chemicals.
User friendly design with low maintenance requirement.
Optimum sizing and residual stretch.
High output.
Indigoflow dyeing machine
Indigoflow is a continuous dyeing range for denim warps. Its
continuous evolution and its constant modernisation made it the
machine with the highest technological content, allowing the maximum
flexibility in use. Various kinds of pre-treatments, mercerising,
pre-dyeing, indigo dyeings, over dyeings, dyeings with vat and
sulphur dyestuffs, etc with intermediate pre-drying facility and
steaming, can be carried out in the machine. It is the only machine
equipped with the exclusive twin low vats for the short bath dyeings
of the coloured denim, with the revolutionary oxidation enhancers
�Rapidsky� and with the new �Rapidwash� which enhances the washing
efficiency with notable water savings. The machine is easy to manage
and is designed for a high quality production with reduced costs,
suitable for a wide range of warps and counts.
Other characteristics include the semicircular bottom dyeing vats
for an easy cleaning, the squeezing pads with special rollers for a
uniform squeezing at each work pressure, the double automatic
dyestuffs feeding system, the particular finning on the rollers on
air that drastically reduce the cleaning operations, the
hydrosulphite and soda automatic feeding systems, the control
electronic devices etc. The compactness with space availability for
all the intervents, the completeness of the installations, even on
the colour kitchen, for air, water, steam and condensate return are
other features. Built with the modern modular concept, with best
quality components easy to find on international market and with the
parts in contact with the bath and the yarn in stainless steel, the
running of the machine is absolutely reliable. It is supplied
complete with a sizing machine or linked in perfect synchronisation
with any kind or brand of sizing machines.
Ben-Indigo dyeing machine
In Ben-Indigo dyeing machine, the preparation of the vat stock is
made in-situ in a reactor of 160litres, in accordance with the
requirements of the dyeing machine, but without excess hydrosulphite
or the ingress of air. The dye concentration in the dye baths can be
raised to 7-8 gm/litre. The vatting rate is maintained at >95 per
cent, whereby the ingress of air and hydrosulphite replenishing are
reduced to a minimum.
Additional dye fixing after leaving the dye bath - before oxidation
- gives a high dye yield. The small amounts of hydrosulphite have a
positive effect in ensuring that oxidation is fast and complete. The
number of immersions can, therefore, be reduced to three. Immersion
times are shortened and the content of each bath reduced to around
200-300 litres.
The speed and dynamism of the system facilitates automatic
monitoring. Disturbances are recognised immediately and the cause
can be determined and rectified. The subsequent rinsing process
requires less water since there is little non-fixed dye and a
considerably lower salt load on the yarn. An indigo recovery plant
is not absolutely necessary.
The technique results in a dyeing range with only three dye baths, a
dyestuff content of about 600-900 litres overall and a high dye
fixation rate. The subsequent washing process requires thereby less
water or washing compartments. The reduced sulphide load on the yarn
results in better running characteristics in the following sizing
and weaving processes. There are advantages.
Sophisticated chemical and process engineering control is made
available to the user in the form of control programs. Oxygen free
just-in-time vatting permits a reduction in dyestuff with minimum
use of chemicals. The process control software gives the machine a
learning capability. It can make early deviation, fault diagnoses
and provide warning messages. The use of the automatic monitoring
system makes it possible to optimise quality and minimise costs
using the analyses of the operation data logged.

Edit
A right move
The efforts towards formation of confederation of Indian textile and
clothing industry by Mr Nikhil Meswani, president, Association of
Synthetic Fibre Association should be fully supported by the textile
trade and industry which is currently undergoing a transformation.
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