Dyeing Natural Cellulose Fibers from Cornhusks: A Comparative Study with Cotton Fibers

This research shows that natural cellulose fibers extracted from cornhusks have better dyeing properties for direct and sulfur dyes and similar dyeing properties for reactive and vat dyes compared to cotton fibers dyed under similar dyeing conditions. Cornhusk fibers have unique structure and properties compared to cotton and common lignocellulosic fibers. However, the short single cells, higher amounts of lignin and hemicellulose, lower percent crystallinity and relatively coarse fibers make the common cellulose fiber dyeing conditions unsuitable to dye cornhusk fibers. In this research, cornhusk fibers were dyed with one dye each from four dye classes, direct, reactive, vat, and sulfur dyes. The dyeing behavior of the fibers was fit in to the common isotherms and the kinetic parameters such as dyeing rate constant, diffusion coefficient, and half-time for dyeing were calculated. It was found that the physical properties of the fibers and structure of the dye had considerable influence on the dye sorption and rate of dyeing. Lower percent crystallinity, smaller crystal size, and presence of hemicellulose, lignin, and higher amounts of surface impurities are mostly responsible for the higher dye sorption on corn fibers compared to cotton.