Alternative Solutions For Sustainable Environment

Colours, which have fascinated us for their sheer beauty and aesthetics, are now becoming functional and an integral part of our continuing understanding. Colours and our ability to produce them from a variety of materials, organic or inorganic, natural or synthetic continue to fascinate scientists. Incorporates The Dyestuff integrates in a broad sense together with dyes and pigments, this also includes there attributes both in physical and chemical nature. Dyes are colored substances of that are organic in nature and used for imparting undying color to diverse range of substrates including leathers, cloth and among others articles . India has a blooming dye market and has emerged as a global leader in the field with its highly diversified products of more than 600 varieties of dyestuffs, as a result of which it produces 16% of global demand of dyestuffs. Application of a dye is generally done by bringing it in an aqueous form and for improving the quality of adherence of the dye on the fiber a mordant is also used. The main advantage of using dyes for color, is there property of high resistant towards washing. Counterparts of the dyes i.e. pigments exhibit property of being insoluble and are basically used in paints.

Dyestuff is mainly manufactured by using dye intermediates as a raw material. Synthetic dyes are conventionally manufactured from petroleum based hydrocarbon compounds. For example Nitro-aromatics are manufactured from aromatic ring compounds namely toluene and benzene, both of these are compounds are synthesized from conventional hydrocarbons. The nitro-aromatics produced are served as raw material for the production of dye intermediates.

Today roughly 90% of the fabrics are synthetically dyed and manufactured. The wastes emanating during large scale production most of the ingredients for synthetic dye manufactured are toxic, hazardous, and recalcitrant to natural degradation and have deleterious effect to the ecosystem. Around 600KLDs of waste waters are produced per kilogram of textile dye. Beside that water pollution statistics showed that 72 toxic chemicals originate solely from dying and some of these cannot be removed. Azo dyes are also highly hazardous in nature as they include amine of carcinogenic nature and there highly flammable nature poses grave threat to those who work with them. Besides that chemical such as dioxins, formaldehyde and also toxic heavy metals such as zinc, chromium, and copper are also commonly used to produce synthetic dyes. And on an estimate, roughly 60millions workers in chemical industry are exposed to such chemicals. In developed countries, 40-50% dye produced is utilized by paints and coatings industry, of this 30-40% is utilized in other allied industries and the remainder of total that is 10% is used in textiles. However, as the growing scale of Indian economy has been escalating increase in domestic demands especially in the domain of printing, paints, tanneries, plastics, which are leading consumers of dyestuffs. Most of the ingredients for synthetic dye production are lethal, hazardous, and recalcitrant to natural degradation and have deleterious effect to the environment. Many of them are found to be toxic, carcinogenic to organisms and some of them have been banned. Due to the adverse effect of synthetic dyes, the health and environment conscious societies prefer for natural and organic products.

The trend for natural dyed fabrics and apparels has renewed globally and this has created demand for natural dyes in regional and international markets The textile industries have aroused great resurgence for natural dyes, due to their environmental friendly nature. Natural dyes production techniques and methods are pollution free and can lend a helping hand in saving the environment. Natural dyes with all their lucrative environment friendly advantages, have their fair share of challenges, these include selection of mordant for application on protein based compounds, selection criteria for best dyes, there printability.

To scientifically establish viability of natural dyes, in depth work is needed in the area of natural dyes and their use. Due to lack of proper scientific knowledge, its knowhow the natural dyes suffered from various limitations such as use of toxic mordants, metallic salts and use of fugitive dyes. Unlikely, the synthetic dyes are based mainly on aniline derived using petroleum or coal tar as the raw material from non-conventional sources natural dyes are derived from renewable resources and represent apparently more sustainable sources of colorants. In the middle of the 19th century, a British chemist Sir William Perkins invented chemical dyes, before this textile dying was performed with organic colors coming from plants, insects and lichens. For mordant application and choice of dyes, both industry and artists need to be knowledgeable and skilled.

The shade of color and fastness was determined by the specific dye components present in each plant. The rare collections in museum from 5th century Coptic textiles and Pre-Columbian era depict the time tested quality of these dyes. Reds made from cochineal insects and yellows from plants, such as weld and fustic, remain vibrant.. In ancient Egypt the only natural source for blue dye was indigo. During industrial revolution, chemical dyes were made became available to the market as more dye was required countering more cloth was being produced Soon, artisans and industry became followers because of the unlimited palette made them very appealing and the ease of its application.

On the other hand to innovation were people working in such industries exposed to harmful chemicals and the pollution of water and ground. This has been the truth for over a century regardless of the improvement of erudite treatment methods to impede pollution In societies where the knowhow for natural-dye was verbally passed down starting with one individual then onto the next, it took just a generation for expertise and knowledge to be lost In the present day individuals like Charlotte Kwon of Maiwa Textiles in Canada and Michele Wipplinger of Earth Hues in Seattle have done vibrant efforts in bringing and helping small group of indigenous craftsman’s around the globe to rediscover the procedure of natural dying. Natural dyes are derived from renewable resources and represent apparently more sustainable sources of colorants. Unlikely the synthetic dyes are based mainly on aniline derived using petroleum or coal tar as the raw material that from a non-renewable resource.

The blue pigment indigo (indigotin) has a significant historical presence as one of the first dyes to be known to humans and of the world’s largest selling textile dyes used for imparting blue colouration on cotton and wool fabrics. Indigo is one of the evocative words like sill and spice that conjure up distant places and exotic trade. Amongst the other textile dyes the blue dye is used in maximum quantity, however, in the present time it is predominately synthesized from non-renewable resources through chemical routes. Indigo was used in India, which was also the earliest major centre for its production. It was utilized in various domains namely fragrance, medicines, food and pesticides.

The alternative to synthetic chemicals, plant derived chemicals should be a priority in current and future efforts for sustainable conservation and rational utilisation of Biodiversity. The search for alternative medicinal compounds form natural available flora can be greatly enhanced and explored by use of biotechnological approaches such as plant tissue culture where the bioactive plant metabolites can be enhanced for industrial production. For macroscopic solutions pertaining to large scale production of secondary metabolites, cell suspension culture can be used for cultivation and extraction of secondary metabolites. Advance biotechnological methods thus can act as viable source of valuable natural products.