4. BioChromes¶
As a seat developing engineer point of view, I am curious about dye with additional function such as antibacterial to keep deodorant effect.
Looking around our Japanese market, there are many fabric products being indicated as "antibacterial" or "deodorant". I am not sure if those products' antibacterial function added by nature friendly way or not.
In this week, I would like to investigate dye with antibacterial point of view.
Learning outcomes¶
- Research skills: the participant has acquired knowledge through references and concept development
- Technical skills: Master techniques mordanting, dyeing (botanical or bacterial), pigments
- Process skills: Anyone can go through the workflow and recipes, understand them and reproduce it
- Final outcome: the participant understands various stages of color as: dye, inks and pigment
- Originality: Has the research been thought through and elaborated?
Student checklist¶
- Include some inspiration: research on artists or projects that on natural/bacterial dyeing, local ingredients and resources
- Produce at least 1 natural dye with modifiers on fabric
- Produce 1 ink OR 1 pigment
- Document your recipes, the ingredients and process and if there have been changes, document your unexpected discoveries
- Submit some of your swatches to the analog material library of your lab (20cm x 20cm approx)
Suggestion for Kohshi from Anastasia¶
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You don't need to work many kinds of dyeing to study, but experience just one dye till the pigment is enough.
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Better to work with materials that could be actually used in your seat project.
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Do research about coating with antibacterial, self healing, and UV resistance properties.
Inspired work¶
Living with The Mother Nature, Ainu people living in Hokkaido has been established useful, durable, and beautiful clothe called "Attus" made of fibers from bark of trees. They are dyed by botanical dyes being considered about anti-bacterial, water proof, and durability reason.
I am very curious about making seat with fabric from trees.
Research¶
During the discussion with Anastasia, Rico, Kae, and Maki(my wife), following ingredients or plants came out as antibacterial; persimmon tannin, mugwort, chitosan.
Persimmon tannin¶
Persimmon tannin dyeing has a long history and there has been traditional techniques in Japan from Heian era. This dyeing seems to be an ideal dye for seat fabric with its high sterilizing, odor, and waterproofing effects. There are several studios such as shinobu producing beautiful fabrics.
Mugwort¶
Chitosan¶
There is an interesting project in Japan to make strong ion bond fo Chitosan and fabric.
Process and workflow¶
Dye¶
Fabric¶
Natural fabric - cotton 100% / hemp 100% / jute 100%
Synthetic fabric - polyester 65% cotton 35% / polyester 100%
Preparation¶
(1) Cut fabrics into 50mm X 50mm
(2) Measure the weight
(3) Wash fabrics with warm (45deg C) water
(4) Dry all fabrics
Scouring¶
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None: prepared not scoured fabrics to compare
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Soy Milk solution:
- Soy Milk : Water = 1:1
- Soak target fabrics for 20min. Dry them all without washing.
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Soda Ash solution:
- Weigh 10% of WOF (Weigh of Fabric)
- For 27g fabric, add 2.7g of soda ash to 200ml warm (45deg C) water. Soak target fabrics for 20min. Dry them all without washing.
- In my case, I prepared 1L(200ml X 5) warm water so that 13.6g (2.7g X 5) soda ash amount was used.
Mordant¶
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None: prepared not mordanted fabrics to compare
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Alum solution:
- Weigh the alum 10% of target WOF. Dissolve it in warm (45deg C) water.
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Iron solution:
- Prepare enough water and soak the steal plate and add "2 spoons of vinegar", and leave it for half a day to create rust solution.
- In my case, I left it for 1 day.
Dye Stuff¶
Mugwort¶
Recipe:
- Fabric(size:50mm X 50mm 22pcs): Cotton 7.4g, Thick Cotton 23.5g, Hemp 13.0g, Jute 14.5g, Strong Jute 15.9g, 65% Polyester 13.1g, Polyester 15.1g, (Total WOF=102.5g)
- Mugwort 224g (double of Total WOF)
- Water up to half of mugwort dips
Check the color of dye every 5 minutes
