Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
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London, Dec 12 (IANS) It is the bane of any laundry day - the stray red sock that finds its way into a load of white clothing leaving it an unintended shade of pink.
But a new type of dye developed by British chemists is set to put an end to the need to separate clothing into coloured and whites.
The technology, which permanently bonds the dye to the clothing fibres, also means that colour does not fade from the fabric with age, unlike current dyeing methods.
Most conventional dyes rely upon the dye being absorbed and trapped inside the threads that make up the fabric, but over time these can leak out particularly while being laundered at higher temperatures, reports the Telegraph.
The new method, developed by researchers at the University of Leeds in Britain, chemically bonds the dye to the chains of molecules that make up the individual fibres.
Patrick McGowan, University of Leeds’ chemist and part of the research team, said: “We have developed this for use with synthetic fabrics which are made of long chains of molecules known as polymers and are notoriously difficult to dye,” according to a Leeds statement.
“Our approach fixes the colour onto the polymer molecules as they are formed so it becomes part of the material itself,” McGowan said.
Material dyed with this new technique has been tested using standard textile industry tests that require a material to be washed at 60 degrees Celsius alongside a piece of cloth made from five different types of fabric.
“They found none of the dye leaked out,” said McGowan.
In many parts of the world where clothing is made such as China and India, the dye is a major source of water pollution.

Environmentalists around the world agree -- plastic bags are choking our landfills and polluting our seas. Now a Tel Aviv University researcher is developing new laboratory methods using corn starch and sugar to help sustainable plastics -- those that biodegrade and are even tougher than those made from petrochemicals -- compete in the industry.
The answer to the problem, Prof. Moshe Kol of Tel Aviv University's School of Chemistry says, is a new variety of catalysts -- substances that initiate or sustain chemical reactions in other substances. His team has already developed several of these new catalysts, and it's currently expanding its activities in partnership with the University of Aachen in Germany and the University of Bath in England.
Prof. Kol is improving the process of making these "green" plastics stronger and more heat-resistant, allowing them to be used in a variety of ways, from the automotive industry to Starbucks coffee cups. The type of plastic the partners are working on, polylactic acid or PLA, is a kind of biodegradable plastic made from renewable plant sources such as corn, wheat or sugarcane. It's already used in bottles, bags, and film, and like polyester can even be woven into clothes.
Making stronger and biodegradable "Lego blocks"
The new catalysts enable the polymerization of lactide, which is the building block of a corn-based plastic. Conventional catalysts have limited control of the way in which these building blocks -- the corn-based molecules -- are assembled -- and they may be toxic. But Prof. Kol's catalysts can be used more safely and efficiently, making "green" plastics more commercially feasible.
"The structure of these corn-based plastics depends on several parameters. The most important is the character of the building blocks, like Lego blocks, that hold the material together," says Prof. Kol. He aims to make sustainable corn-based plastics complement or replace the petroleum-based plastics which can take a millenium to degrade, leaving harmful pollutants in the soil and in water. Corn-based plastic wouldn't cause any adverse health effects and would be expected to biodegrade in a compost bin in a matter of months.
Lord of the plastic ring
Plastics won't be going away any time soon, Prof. Kol suggests, pointing to the movement from concrete or stainless steel to plastic in a variety of industries. Replacing the steel manifold of a car with a plastic substitute would cut down on fuel consumption, and replacing a water pipe made of concrete or metal with one made of corrosion- and crack-resistant plastic may improve the quality of our drinking water.
For disposable items, a perfect plastic material would be a polymer made from renewable resources, that degrades to its original non-toxic form. Plastics made from corn sugar are the most desirable in the industry at the moment.
The preliminary results of Prof. Kol's efforts are in, and the plastics that he and his team produce in the lab look and feel like polystyrene, which could be used for making drinking cups, for example. Rigid and transparent, the drinking cups currently only work for liquids under 122 degrees Fahrenheit, but they represent a first big step into greening plastics and the chemical industry.sciencedaily
