Enhancing Textile Sustainability Through Natural Dyes: Performance on Wool and Wool‑Synthetic Blends

Environmental concerns regarding the impact of textile dyeing have stimulated research into the development of natural dyes as sustainable alternatives to synthetic dyes. This study presents a comprehensive analysis of the scientific literature on the application of natural dyes to wool and wool-synthetic fiber blends subtract, focused on the interaction between natural dyes and wool and synthetic fibers, mordant-assisted dyeing processes, and dyeing performance parameters, including dye uptake, fastness properties, and color uniformity. Wool fibers, with their protein structure containing different reactive functional groups, exhibit a greater affinity for natural dyes than synthetic fibers, resulting in greater dye absorption and also better color intensity and fastness. Synthetic fibers, on the other hand, have limited affinity for natural dyes and, consequently, exhibit heterogeneous dye distribution and less color uniformity.Optimized natural dyeing processes, using natural dyes with the combination of specific mordant agents, included the use of bio-mordants, can significantly improve dye fixation on yarns and fabrics, color strength, and fastness properties. However, industrial application of natural dyes has some limitations related to color variability and reproducibility, as well as scalability of the dyeing process. The present work proposes a comparative framework to evaluate the performance of natural dyes for dyeing fabrics made from wool and wool-synthetic blends, facilitating the selection of materials and dyeing process parameters. The development of dyeing processes that use natural dyes, combined with bio-based mordants, can contribute to more sustainable textile practices.