| Summary: | Colored rocks (lateritic) and soils (shales) are available in abundant all around Malaysia and they are from natural sources. The colorants will be useful if they can be transferred to substrates using dyeing, printing or brushing with acceptable fastness. First of all the rocks need to be crushed into powder form before coloration can take place. The sizes of the colorants particles obtained with coffee grinder were of 7-8 microns. They can be reduced to 3-5 micron using fluidized bed jetmill and to nano sizes with the help of planetary mono mill grinders. The experiment was conducted in both dyeing and printing of textiles using all three sizes (7-8 microns, 3-5 microns and nano sizes) of colorants on silk fabric. The colorants were applied on silk fabrics by dyeing and tie and dye techniques. In addition, the colorants can also be applied by brushing technique as in batik canting or batik block as well as silk screen printing. The evaluations of colored materials were based on the levelness of dyeing, fastness properties (washing, light and rubbing fastness) and color strength. The wash fastness testing shows that all colorants sizes have more or less the same fastness to washing but nano sized colorants produced better uniform dyes distribution (levelness of dyeing) and higher color strength. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.
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