Environmental method for preparation of higher color strength dyeing cotton fabrics with colored nanosilica pigment

Abstract Dye wastewater into the water system would cause a severe threat to the natural environment. To reduce the dye discharge, it is highly essential to find a clean and green method to color cotton fabrics. Herein, this work has expediently designed the novel pigment with colored nanoparticles to dye cotton fabrics, which was based on the adsorption of dyes from dyes solution with the synthesis of worm-like hydrophilic porous silica (WHMS) and formed colored particles. It could be found that as-prepared WHMS exhibited with the larger surface area of 968.61 m²/g, the average size of 300 nm and the higher electronegativity on the surface of WHMS materials and could be favorable to capture dye to achieve the capacity above 500 mg/g for different cationic and reduce dyes discharge. The colored WHMS applied in dyeing cotton fabrics show the higher stability and stronger color strength by electrostatic attraction compared with original dyes, in which the mass of WHMS-dyes could be retained by above 80% in thermal decomposition, the color depth of WHMS-dyes dying fabrics increased by above1.2 times and the dye residues in the dyeing process were reduced. The high-quality dyeing fabrics can be obtained and nanospheres uniformly fixed on cotton fabrics through the binder to build a layer film, owing to its hydrophobicity and small sizes. The dyeing cotton fabrics exhibited good wet rubbing, washing fastness and hand feel. These results suggest that the WHMS-dyes can be suitable for cotton dyeing textiles as a sustainable coloring process.