Expansion of Natural Dye Colour Gamut for Use by the Local Textile and Craft Industry

Abstract

Natural dyes have been used since long back in various areas such as textiles, craftwork, food colouring and also as medicine. This work was based on expansion of the colour shade that can be obtained from natural dyes for use by the small scale users. The natural dye was extracted from three naturally available plants locally in Zimbabwe using the cold extraction under gravity method. An alcohol was used to extract the dye using a vacuum pump and left to dry. The extracted dye was then used to dye fabric strips using different metals as mordants. From the colour charts generated from the various dyeings it was shown that the shades can be extended for certain plants and in some cases they are not easy to expand. Application of the metal mordants at different concentrations was also found to have an effect on the hue of the dyed fabric strips. The results show that the natural dye from the Mukwa (Pterocarpus anglonesis) gave a wider range of shades as compared to the other two dyes.