Glucose improves dyeing quality process of plant-derived indigo
03 Apr '09
1 min read
Research scientist Anne Vuorema of MTT Agnifood Research, Finland has come up with a new fact that glucose can serve as a reducing agent of indigo. This would aid in devising a much better dyeing process for the textile industry.
Indigo, being a vat dye needs to be reduced to water-soluble leuco-form before dyeing, so as to enable the dye to spread across the textile fabric. Glucose being a good reducing agent works well with indigo.
The research enables researchers to improve the extraction of indigo from the leaves of dyer's woad. It enhances the energy efficiency of dyeing and can commercialize the use of plant derived indigo.
Anne Vuorema also developed a new method to determine the purity of indigo. The plant derived indigo is reduced, using glucose and the indigo concentration in the mixture is measure using a new method. This is of great help in determining the purity of plant derived indigo.