A Systematic Review of Tea Dyeing in the Textile Industry: Research Trends, Dyeing Performance, Functional Characteristics, and Application Potential

The tea plant ( Camellia sinensis) is a widely planted cash crop around the world. Rich in tea polyphenols, it can bring enormous economic and health benefits to mankind. Meanwhile, tea extracts have been used to dye fabric for a long time and have multiple advantages in environmental protection and health. Based on the PRISMA method, this research conducts a systematic review of relevant studies on tea dyeing in the textile industry. To be specific, it collected 274 scientific publications after searching through databases like PubMed and Web of Science, and then selected 43 of the publications for the review. This research aims to summarize and analyze the existing research results, and probe into the advantages and potential of tea dyeing. For this purpose, this research first concludes the research progress of tea dyeing in the past 20 years, and visualizes the research hotspots in this field using the software CiteSpace. Furthermore, it analyzes the major components of tea dyes and the ways of detecting them. In the latter part, this study focuses on their performance of dyeing various fabrics, summarizes several ways to effectively improve the dyeing performance, and discusses the properties that tea dyes can impart to fabrics. Finally, this review also discusses the positive impact of tea dyeing on environmental protection and sustainable development, as well as the main challenges faced in terms of technology, cost, market acceptance, etc. when applied in the textile industry. This review can help researchers in this field better understand relevant research dynamics, and provide insights and necessary references for further study.