Enhanced Pigment Dyeing and UV Protection of Polyester Fabrics Using Sericin Encapsulated PB 15:3

Biopolymer sericin is formulated for encapsulation of phthalocyanine pigment blue using a liquid-phase separation method for multifunctional pigment dyeing. The present work implements a sericin shell to eliminate problems associated with conventional pigment dyeing of synthetic fabrics. Thermal gravimetric analysis, transmission electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and contact angle analysis were used to characterize the encapsulated pigment powder. Further, the color performance of sericin-encapsulated pigment powder was compared to conventional pigment dyeing using un-encapsulated pigment and sericin-pretreated fabrics via the pad-dry-cure method. The results showed that the strong polar side groups of highly hydrophilic sericin accelerated pigment dyeing under unfavorable/mild conditions and served as efficient protection against ultraviolet (UV) light. The color strength and UV shielding properties are greatly influenced by the crosslinker concentration of the encapsulated pigment. The findings demonstrated that the pad-dry-cure pretreatment of fabrics with sericin had little affinity for pigment dyeing and highlighted the superiority of liquid-phase encapsulation of the pigment for the development of multifunctional pigment dyeing.