Module: II

Natural Dyes

Vishal Trivedi
Amity University, NOIDA
 Content..
• Natural Dyes : An Introduction
• Classification of Natural dyes
– Vegetable/Plant Source
– Animal Source
– Mineral Source
– Microbial Source
• Advantage and Disadvantage of Natural
Dyes
• Properties of Natural dyes
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 Natural Dyes
• Natural dyes derived from natural resources.
• Natural resources are plant leaves, roots, bark,
insect secretions, and minerals etc.
• Natural dyes are renewable source of coloring
materials.
• Natural dyes are ecofriendly, protective to skin
and pleasing color to eyes.
• But natural dyes have a very poor bonding to
textile fiber material, that why the evolution of
synthetic dyes has been came in to an existence.
 Classification of Natural Dyes
The classification of natural dyes based
on origin/source are:
1. Vegetable/Plant
2. Animal
3. Mineral
4. Microbial source
 Vegetable/Plant source
• Plants have been used for the extraction of a majority of
natural dyes.
• Various plant parts including roots, leaves, twigs, stems,
heartwood, bark, wood shavings, flowers, fruits, husks, and
the like serve as natural dye sources
• The famous natural blue dye, indigo is obtained from the
leaves of the plant indigofera tinctoria.
• Madder is the red color producing natural dyes from the
plants of various Rubia species.
• Turmeric is a well-known natural dye. The dye is extracted
from the fresh or dried rhizomes of turmeric.
• Various resources like Onion, Pomegranate, Safflower,
Barberry, Marigold, Kamala and many more.
Vegetable/Plant source
 Animal Source
• Insects were the main source of natural dyes of
animal origin and most of these provided red
colors.
• The oldest animal origin dye, Tyrian purple,
produced from the secretions of the sea mollusc
Murex is an exception.
• Cochineal was an important animal origin dye
obtained from the insects of the species called
Dactylopius coccus which is still being used to
dye textiles.
• Kermes is another animal origin crimson red dye
derived from the insect Kermes licis.
 Mineral and Microbial Source

• Some mineral source found in nature such

as cinnabar, red ocher, yellow ocher, raw
sienna, malachite, ultramarine blue, azurite,
gypsum, talc, charcoal black, and so on,
have been used for coloration purpose.
• Some bacteria produce colored substances
as secondary metabolites. Bacillus,
Brevibacterium, Flavobacterium,
Achromobacter, Pseudomonas,
Rhodococcus spp. are some of the pigment-
producing bacteria.
 Natural Dyes
Advantage Natural dyes:
1. No health hazard
2. Easy extraction and purification
3. No effluent generation
4. Very high sustainability
5. Mild dyeing conditions
6. Renewable sources
Disadvantage of Natural Dye:
7. Mostly applicable to natural fibres (cotton, linen, wool
and silk)
8. Poor color fastness properties
9. Poor reproducibility of shades
10. No standard color recipes and methods available.
11. Use of metallic mordants, some of which are not eco
 Properties of Natural Dyes
• Limited Shade availability.
• More expensive as compare to Synthetic
dyes
• Fastness properties are not good.

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 Use full links

• https://youtu.be/oofh4pKfXl0

• https://youtu.be/x3j1-G-RPeA

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Thank You