Eco-friendly colorization of textile originating from polydopamine nanofilm structural color with high colorfastness

Abstract Traditional textile dyeing industry usually use chemical pigments and dyes, which bring about a large amount of colored wastewater causing serious environmental pollution. Replacing the traditional high pollution dyeing methods to realize eco-friendly dyeing is very important to the textile dyeing industry, structural colorization maybe one of the most promising methods. In this study, a novel approach was proposed to fabricate eco-friendly coloration of textile originating from polydopamine (PDA) structural color nanofilm with high colorfastness. Four different bright colors were obtained by the polymerization of PDA nanofilm with different reaction times on cotton fabric. However, capillary tension during the formation of PDA nanofilm and weak interaction with fabric substrate resulted in cracking and poor colorfastness. The novel synthesis adhesive of poly (glycidyl methacrylate co-polyethylene glycol methyl ether methacrylate) containing reactive epoxy groups was used to avoid cracking and improve the colorfastness which would form covalent bond on the interface between structural color film and substrate. Therefore, crack-free PDA structural color nanofilm with high colorfastness on cotton fabric surface was obtained. This facile approach provide novel idea for eco-friendly dyeing different kinds of textiles with structural color boosting the cleaner dyeing in textile industrial field.