False Black Pepper (Embelia ribes) Seeds-natural Colour Source for Wool Dyeing

It is a need of the time to try out different sources of natural dyes to colour the textiles as the synthetic dyes used on textiles are carcinogenic and can create havoc in the human life system. The research was carried out for optimizing different conditions for dyeing wool with dye extracted from False Black Pepper seeds. The study was conducted in Department of Textiles and Apparel Designing, College of Community Science, Vasantrao Naik Marathwada Krishi Vidyapeeth, Parbhani, Maharashtra (India). The dyeing conditions optimized for dyeing wool were, medium of dye extraction, dye extraction time, dye material concentration, dyeing time and mordant concentrations. The colour fastness of wool dyed by adopting optimized conditions were tested for different parameters. The alkaline medium was most suitable for extracting dye from False Black Pepper seeds for dyeing wool. On the basis of percent dye absorption the standardized dye extraction and dyeing time was 30 min, dye material concentration was 5%. The highest dye absorption percent was seen when wool was dyed with 10% Potassium Aluminum Sulphate (Alum) mordant in a simultaneous mordanting while for Copper Sulphate mordant 3% in post mordanting and for Ferrous Sulphate it was 3% in pre-mordanting. Wool dyed with False Black Pepper dye using different mordents adopting different mordanting methods exhibited very good to excellent colour fastness to sunlight, washing, rubbing and perspiration except wet rubbing as noticeable colour staining was observed in all the samples. The subtle,attractive colour range of light brown to dark brown acquired by the wool when dyed with False Black Pepper dye using different mordents.