Researches on Microwave Dyeing Cotton Fabrics
This experiment compared four different dyeing cotton fabrics processes with the reactive dye. It was found that under microwave irradiation dyeing, the dye-uptake and fixed percentage of the reactive dye were improved significantly and the salt and the alkali dosage in the dyeing bath were greatly reduced. Analysis found by XRD that microwave irradiation did not significantly change the internal structure of the cotton fibers and only slightly increased the orientation degree of them, so the tensile strength of the fabric was not significantly altered. Therefore, the main function of microwave in dyeing process was that its alternating electric field made the dye and the fiber molecule polarization, to increase the thermal motion of the molecules and the interaction between the polar molecules, thereby improving the dyeing rate and the fixing rate of the reactive dye.