Dyes for cellulosic textiles

Jessie Firth <jessie.firth<-at->awm<.>gov<.>au> writes

>Due to the requirement for a current, manufacturer produced MSDS we
>have had to dispose of a large portion of our Solophenyl dyes.
>
>This has given us the opportunity to see if there is a better
>alternative out there. ...

In Europe, most Textile conservators Have changed away from
Solophenyl (a direct dye) a long time ago because of its poor wet
fastness (bleeding when wet).  Normally, reactive dyes would be
used. Until recently we used Cibacron FN (Ciba, later Huntsman).  As
Cibacron will be withdrawn from the market soon, we recently changed
to Avitera SE (Huntsman).

    <URL:http://www.huntsman.com/corporate/a/Innovation/AVITERA_R%20SE?p_langswitch=1>

The dyes have very high light and wet fastness and are not more
complicated to use than other reactive dyes.  Together with Huntsman
Switzerland, modified dying protocols have been devised for textile
conservation minimizing additives, used in Industry for future
processing but not necessary for Conservation purposes or stability.

However, you have to keep to the proposed dye-powder-combinations
for each depth of shade in order to achieve the best stability of
the dye possible (do not try to save money and only buy, e.g., one
blue dye powder).  I am sure there is a Huntsman contact in
Australia, and as in conservation we use so little dye powder
compared to industrial use, you might be able to get free samples to
begin with.

The Textile Group of the Swiss Conservation-Restoration Association
SKR, in a shared effort, has dyed three triangles with 231 recipes
each in order to have a starting point.  You can contact me offline
if you are interested in further information; we do have some
triangles left that we sell to production cost plus shipping.

Karin von Lerber
Dipl. Textilkonservatorin FH
Konservatorin-Restauratorin SKR


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 30:1
                   Distributed: Sunday, May 22, 2016
                        Message Id: cdl-30-1-002
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