Dyes

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The great appeal of textiles lies in their colors and the way that color is used to
create patterned effects. Color is applied by the process of dyeing, which in its
simplest form involves the immersion of a fabric in a solution of a dyestuff in
water. Patterned effects are obtained by selectively applying dyes to fabric, for
example by roller printing. The amount of dyestuff required is very small, but its
production and application require considerable skill. Changes in the ways of

producing dyes during the nineteenth century heralded the modern sciencebased chemical industry.

Natural Dyes
Dyes obtained from natural products, such as plants and insects, have been used
for decorative effect and as symbols of status for thousands of years. The
mollusk-derived Roman purple, 6,6-dibromoindigo, also called Tyrian purple,
was remarkable for its fastness to light and washing; it was also an important
mark of social distinction. The associated biblical blue holds great religious
significance among observant Jews. In China, the emperor and empress wore
yellow, the imperial ladies violet, and noblemen of the first grade blue. Explorers
of the Americas came across many natural dyes, particularly dyewoods, not
previously known in Europe. Native American peoples, such as Navajo and Hopi,
were highly skilled dyers. In Europe the blue extracted from the woad plant was
used for adornment, through the coloring of skin and later the dyeing of textiles.
By the sixteenth century dyes played a major role in political and economic
history as European nations vied for sources of new colors and the secrets of
applying natural colors. Indigo tinctoria that yielded a brighter indigo blue than
woad arrived in Europe from India and the East. Indigo and the red known as
madder, from the roots of the madder plant, were the most important natural
dyes. Indigo was used in kimono dyeing in Japan. Madder was the basis of the
fiery Turkey red. England's King George II chose indigo for the color of British
naval uniforms (hence "navy blue").
Indigo is a vat dye, which means that it was once applied in special vats. It and
other vat dyes are insoluble in water. In dyeing, indigo is converted, or reduced,
to a white form, which is soluble. Yarn or fabric is then dipped in the vat
containing the reduced dye, which on leaving the vat is oxidized in the air back to
blue. Tyrian purple and biblical blue are also vat dyes.

Dyes, Industry, and Science

Dyestuffs were central to the first Industrial Revolution , from the late
eighteenth century, based on the production of and trade in textiles. This

Containers of fabric dyes.

encouraged chemists to investigate the composition of natural dyes. They
extracted the colorant in madder and gave it the scientific name alizarin. Dyes
also played a prominent role in the second Industrial Revolution, commencing
around 1870, when the quest for synthetic colorants led to the development of
science-based industry.
The first of the modern synthetic dyes was invented in London in 1856 by the
chemist William Henry Perkin when he was still a teenager. His product was first
sold as Tyrian purple, but from 1859 on it was known as mauve, from the French
word for the mallow flower. It was made from coal tar, the waste product of the
coal gasification process. The coal-tar product benzene was converted in three
steps to the dye. Perkin's teacher was the German chemist August Wilhelm
Hofmann, who began research to identify the chemical constituents of the new
coal-tar or "aniline" dyes. Chemistry in Germany was highly developed at this
time, and many Germans journeyed to England to work in the new synthetic dye
industry. Starting in the mid-1860s, they returned home, armed with the latest
science and technology. The industry soon moved to Germany and Switzerland.
Particularly significant was the production of artificial alizarin red (in 1869),
mainly in Germany, and indigo (1897), only in Germany. These synthetic

products destroyed the trading monopolies in natural dyes by displacing the

large-scale cultivation of madder and indigo. The other new dyes had no analogs
in nature. In 1875 the dye chemist Otto N. Witt proposed a theory of color and
constitution that is still used to explain how certain arrangements of atoms,
called chromophores , give rise to color. Other groups called auxochromes
enable the bonding to fiber and modify the color.
The development of the synthetic dye industry led to the emergence of classical
organic chemistry. Its application in industry was rapid. From the end of the
nineteenth century the intermediates employed in the manufacture of
synthetic dyes were used to make pharmaceutical products such as aspirin. Some
synthetic dyes exhibited bactericidal properties; they were called medicinal dyes.
Sulfonamides , drugs introduced in the 1930s, are based on research into
dyestuffs and their intermediates. Less fast dyes have made color photography
possible. Indigo is not fast to light and washing, and soon gives a faded effect.
Since the 1960s that property has been used to advantage in fashionable denims.
The modern U.S. chemical industry emerged in 1915, when supplies of dyes were
cut off by Germany, which required dyes and their intermediates for military
purposes, including the manufacture of explosives, and also by the British
blockade on German shipping. From the 1970s the by then mature industry
declined in Europe and the United States, in part because of environmental
difficulties facing dye manufacturers, such as the pollution of surface waters.

Making Colors Last

Color fastness is important in textiles. It is a measure of how well the dye is
attached to fabric (substrate). In the early 1900s a new class of coal-tar dyes,
known as the indanthrenes, was invented. Some blue indanthrenes displaced
indigo, because they were faster to light and washing, and brighter. The most
important of these colorants, collectively known as vat dyes, is vat jade green.
Mordant dyes are those that can be applied only with a fixing agent, or
mordant. The fixing agents are often metal compounds, particularly those whose

cations form coordination complexes. Alizarin is a mordant dye, and with

different metal compounds it gives a range of colors. The first synthetic dyes that
attached to fabric without the need for a mordant were benzidine dyes, invented
in the 1880s. However, early in the twentieth century some of them were found to
cause bladder cancer. Their manufacture ceased by the early 1970s. In 1956
chemists at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) in England announced the first
dyes that bonded chemically to fabric; these fiber-reactive colorants ensured
great fastness.

Common Dyes
Fluorescent dyes, or whitening agents, alter the drab gray or yellow appearance of
white fabrics that have been washed many times. They do this by absorbing
ultraviolet (UV) light and reemitting the absorbed energy as fluorescence in the
blue region of the spectrum. This "blueing" makes fabrics look whiter and
brighter. Fluorescent dyes are also used as tracers in following sewage and
contaminated sources of water, and are important in detection chemistry for drug
development.
A wide variety of natural and synthetic dyes are used to color foodstuffs. Florida
oranges, often a natural green color when ripe, are sometimes dyed orange with
synthetic dyes. Since some synthetic dyes cause illness, their use is restricted, or
excluded, even in the coloration of textiles. In the United States, the Pure Food,
Drug, and Cosmetic Act enables the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to
control the dyes in foods. This is why these dyes are given names with the prefix
FD&C or External D&C.
Hair dyes are of two types: permanent and semipermanent. Permanent dyeing is
achieved with a synthetic dye, applied with hydrogen peroxide that first bleaches
the natural pigment melanin. Semipermanent dyes are generally made with
vegetable extracts, such as henna, that coat rather than penetrate the hair shaft.
There are a number of questions about the safety of synthetic hair dyes, since
some of the products they contain cause cancer.

Easter egg dyes are natural dyes that can be found around the home. They
include blue from cabbage leaves or blueberries, orange from yellow onion skins,
red from cranberries or raspberries, pale green from spinach leaves, and light
yellow from orange or lemon peels. Dyes often have different colors in acidic and
alkaline solutions. This enables them to be used as acid-base indicators. Many
dyes are utilized as biological stains .

TIE-DYEING
Tie-dyeing is, like textile printing, selective dyeing. If a piece of wool is bound
tightly with cotton strips and then dyed by immersion in a dye bath, only those
areas exposed to the dye will take on its color. After the fabric is removed and
allowed to dry, and when the strips of cotton are untied, the tightly bound areas
show no color from the dye. Omitting dye from an area creates what is referred to
as a reserve. The whole piece can then be placed in a dye bath, so that the reserve
areas are now dyed, and the previously dyed areas show the effect of two dyes.
This process, called tie-dyeing, creates interesting patterns on fabric and is often
used in producing T-shirts, shorts, or handkerchiefs.
SEE ALSO C OSMETICS ; P ERKIN , W ILLIAM H ENRY ; P IGMENTS .

Anthony S. Travis

Bibliography
Bearfoot, Will (1975). Dyes and Fibers. Willits, CA: Oliver Press.
Brunello, Franco (1973). The Art of Dyeing in the History of Mankind. Vicenza:
Neri Pozza Editore.
Cannon, John, and Cannon, Margaret (1994). Dye Plants and Dyeing. London:
Herbert Press.

Epp, Dianne N. (1995). Palette of Color Series: The Chemistry of Natural Dyes ;
The Chemistry of Vat Dyes ; The Chemistry of Food Dyes. Middletown, OH:
Terrific Science Press.
Fox, Robert, and Nieto-Galan, Agust, eds. (1999). Natural Dyestuffs and
Industrial Culture in Europe, 17501880. Nantucket, MA: Science History
Publications.
Garfield, Simon (2001). Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed
the World. New York: W.W. Norton.
McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch (2001). Prometheans in the Lab: Chemistry and the
Making of the Modern World. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Robinson, Stuart (1968). A History of Dyed Textiles: Dyes, Fibres, Painted Bark,
Batik, Starch-Resist, Discharge, Tie-Dye, Further Sources for Research.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Robinson, Stuart (1969). A History of Printed Textiles: Block, Roller, Screen,
Design, Dyes, Fibres, Discharge, Resist, Further Sources for Research.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Shultz, Kathleen (1982). Create Your Own Natural Dyes. New York: Sterling
Publishing.
Travis, Anthony S. (1991). "Synthetic Dyestuffs: Modern Colours for the Modern
World." In Milestones in 150 Years of the Chemical Industry, ed. P. J. T. Morris,
W.A. Campbell, and H. L. Roberts. London: Royal Society of Chemistry, pp. 144
157.

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User Contributions:
1

shahid adeelchemist
Jan 8, 2007 @ 5:05 am

GOOD ARTICLE ON NATURAL DYES.,

COULD YOU ADDED CLASSIFICATION ONB BASIS OF COLOR , STRUCTURE
AND APPLICATION OF NATURAL DYES.
PLSEASE ADD IT/.

2
Edith Gibson
Apr 25, 2008 @ 6:06 am
I am looking for information re the use of flowers to colour pottery. This would
most likely be blue or purple and originating from India. Whatever they used
would have to be stable when the kiln was fired above 1000C
3

alvin
Mar 26, 2009 @ 5:05 am

i found that the information supplied will be beneficial to the knowledge i require to
make informed choices when dyeing.

4
mary teneyck
Apr 20, 2009 @ 6:06 am
I'm looking to create my own color dyes to use in tye dying shirts, as well as
natural hand made yarns, for weaving my own yarns and stuff, plus use it in
making up t-shirts for dying them as well, and making my own paint for using on
the t-shirts that I'd paint on. I'm already been tye dying shirts for over 40 yrs
now, going natural "GREEN" is the way to go now, save money live
better, learn something in the process~
5

ashok
Oct 27, 2009 @ 10:10 am

good artical. i want the information regarding the supply chain management ion dyes
industry

6
lexi
Dec 16, 2009 @ 1:01 am
hi...my name is lexi...im 12. i did an experiment involing dyes... this article helped
A TON thanks
7

zubair ahmed 09TE06

Feb 13, 2011 @ 3:03 am

so excellent really,and an interesting thin g is that it is in so easy language ,that every

one can easily understand,,thanx alot

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