COLORATION OF SILK WITH INDEGENOUS HERBS (ECLIPTA ALBA L.)

Abstract

The use of natural color on textiles are increasing day by day. In order to add beauty and
functional properties on silk textiles, its coloration with natural dye is a challenging task and it
is very limited due to non-availability of standard procedure of its application and
characterization of colored compounds present in different plants. The color compound
extracted from the indigenous herb Eclipta alba was analyzed to isolated its color creating
chromophores. The chemical structures of isolated compounds were established on the basis
of spectroscopic analysis mainly NMR,IR, UV, Mass spectra and element analysis. It was
found that wedelolactone is the main color bearing compounds responsible for green color
from the plant. Luteolin and apegenin were two other compounds present in the plant which act
differently in creating different hue with different mordants. The dyeing properties of colored
compounds have been evaluated on silk fabric with natural mordant myrobalam and ecofriendly mordant alum and different hue of light green to bluish green were obtained with a
very good color fastness property.