Chemistry of Paint & Pigments

[freeztar]

:shrug: yeah, i only mentioned suksdorfii because hey, you can never mention suksdorfii too often

 

I never grow tired of it! ;)

 

Suksdorfii! :D

 

this time of year the skunk cabbage leaves here have died back, having done their job replenishing the bulb after the blooming cycle and there will be no new growth 'till next spring.

 

Eh, yes I guess it is a bit late. I remember seeing the leaves in June, but not so much in August. :(

 

i have my baking soda mordanted canvas drying & will give the dyeing a whirl later today. i plan to cut 4 test strips and try cold & hot dyeing with the Rudbekia dye and the alder dye i prepared in the stainless pot. i'm on it like saffron on a monk's robe. :(

 

:)

 

(saffron on a monk's robe ;) )

[Mercedes Benzene]

Hmm. Give me some time to catch up, and I'll join in on the fun!:)

[Turtle]

Hmm. Give me some time to catch up, and I'll join in on the fun!:doh:

 

roger that. here is the result of today's dyeing on canvas mordanted with baking powder. turns out making the photo in daylight, not so good; everything of color washed out on image. this image taken under a "bright white" fluorescent twisty blub. :lol: beneath all the samples a swatch of raw un-dyed canvas for comparison. :doh: ;)

 

maybe the alder dye on cotton needs an acidic mordant and not basic. it didn't seem to really take whether cold or boiled? :) what could i use that's a natural acidic mordant? oh i don't know...maybe....oxalis suksdorfii!! ;) that's all i got for now. . . . . . . :)

 

[Ganoderma]

excuse the stupidity, but what is the exact purpose of the mordant? one site said to "set" the colour. does this mean it brings out certain tones of the natural product? or doe sit kind of "fix" a colour so that it does not rapidly turn colour?

 

i have been wanting to try out different things from dragon fruit for dyes, specifically the red variety. these things stain everything they touch worse than wine or blood!

 

for others interested in this kind of thing there is a cool article here:

CONCLUSION

 

The wide array of betacyanins present in Hylocereus polyrhizus provides an avenue to obtain a new natural food colourant. The results in this study showed that the best weight: volume ratio to extract pigments with water is 1:1 and the best temperature to use for high pigment yield is 100 °C. The pH and pigment retention capacity observed in this study revealed that betacyanin have high tolerance towards factors such as temperature and light which is most important in food colouring stability. Other than that, the results indicated that the betacyanins have the ability to regenerate under suitable conditions which supports earlier findings mentioned earlier. The most stable condition for pigment storage observed in this study where there was least change in pH and pigment concentration, was samples stored in -20 °C. Visibile colour changes that was observed when samples were subjected to heat suggests that there is a possibility that structural conformation occurred but pigment concentration did not. Overall, this study can conclude that water extraction and heat are viable methods to obtain high concentration of betacyanins and these pigments have a great tolerance towards factors that are important when it comes to food colouring, water extraction could be more economical and heat may provide an alternative colour for a natural dye. Further studies and experiment are needed to ascertain and confirm these initial findings. Thus, the potentials and promising findings so far on Hylocereus polyrhizus makes the crop a new valuable source of water-soluble and natural dye for health conscious consumers along with the food additive industry.

http://scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=jbs.2008.1174.1180

[Turtle]

excuse the stupidity, but what is the exact purpose of the mordant? one site said to "set" the colour. does this mean it brings out certain tones of the natural product? or doe sit kind of "fix" a colour so that it does not rapidly turn colour?

 

what you have expressed is ignorance, not stupidity. ignorance is removed with knowledge; stupidity a permanent stain. it is all new to me too. here's what seems a straightforward answer to your quewstion.

 

Natural Dyeing of Textiles - Technical Information Online - Practical Answers

Mordants

Few natural dyes are colour-fast with fibres. Mordants are substances which are used to fix a dye to the fibres. They also improve the take-up quality of the fabric and help improve colour and light-fastness. The term is derived from the Latin mordere' date=' to bite. Some natural dyes, indigo for example, will fix without the aid of a mordant; these dyes are known as 'substantive dyes'. Others dyes, such as madder and weld, have a limited fastness and the colour will fade with washing and exposure to light.

[/quote']

 

i have been wanting to try out different things from dragon fruit for dyes, specifically the red variety. these things stain everything they touch worse than wine or blood!

 

for others interested in this kind of thing there is a cool article here:

 

Determining Pigment Extraction Efficiency and Pigment Stability of Dragon Fruit (<I>Hylocereus polyrhizus</I>)

 

no time like the present. let the trying dyeing begin! :)

[freeztar]

roger that. here is the result of today's dyeing on canvas mordanted with baking powder. turns out making the photo in daylight, not so good; everything of color washed out on image. this image taken under a "bright white" fluorescent twisty blub. :doh: beneath all the samples a swatch of raw un-dyed canvas for comparison. :)

 

maybe the alder dye on cotton needs an acidic mordant and not basic. it didn't seem to really take whether cold or boiled? ;) what could i use that's a natural acidic mordant? oh i don't know...maybe....oxalis suksdorfii!! :doh: that's all i got for now. . . . . . . ;)

 

 

Disappointing results on the alder, eh? :(

The Rudbeckia looks great! :)

 

Sukdorfii!!! :lol:

 

(don't even think about it) :)

 

The other Oxalis will work just as well.

[Turtle]

Disappointing results on the alder, eh? :naughty:

The Rudbeckia looks great! :naughty:

 

Sukdorfii!!! :)

 

(don't even think about it) ;)

 

The other Oxalis will work just as well.

 

a little disappointing yes, but i have to make the mistakes now so's i know what to avoid later. :naughty: i may try white vinegar, acetic acid, as a mordant treatment on the canvas and go with the alder experiment again. i have some on hand and i won't have to pluck my little pretty suksdorfiis. suksdorfae? :naughty: :naughty: . . . . . .

[modest]

maybe the alder dye on cotton needs an acidic mordant and not basic. it didn't seem to really take whether cold or boiled? :) what could i use that's a natural acidic mordant? oh i don't know...maybe....oxalis suksdorfii!! :naughty: that's all i got for now. . . . . . .

 

Too bad 'bout the baking powder :naughty:

 

I found this:

 

Craft of the dyer: colour from ... - Google Books

 

Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century home dyers in the eastern North American colonies used a variety of redily available kichen and boudoir products as mordants. Wood ashes, blood, urine, lye, tree galls, and clay were popular...Wood ashes were used both as a mordant and a dye, for greys and blacks...

 

The eastern Indians used the acid juices of crab-apple and other indigenous furit to set their dyes (Douglas Leechman, ‘Aboriginal Dyes in Canada’ 71), and a contemporary Eskasoni dryer and basket-weaver, Margaret Johnson, cooks her alder brown in an aluminum pot, which acts as a mordant for the wood dye. Basket-maker Edith Clayton of Preston also cooks alder in an aluminm pot. Mrs Clayton is not consciously using the pot as a mordant. The same is true of Mrs Johnson. Mrs Clayton also adds baking powder ‘sometimes’ to the alder bath, and thinks spring-cut wood gives the best colours. Alder itself is used as a mordant in Ireland, with dyers taking advantage of the natural tannin it contains.

 

Aluminum pot... ;) :naughty: Do you still have any of the wood to cook up another batch?

 

~modest

[Turtle]

Too bad 'bout the baking powder :(

 

I found this:

 

Craft of the dyer: colour from ... - Google Books

Aluminum pot... :D :shrug: Do you still have any of the wood to cook up another batch?

 

~modest

 

well, at least the baking powder works for the Rudbeckia. my sunflowers are starting to bloom now; gonna have to read up & see if that's a good dye stock.

 

i have a large coffee can full of the red-alder bark. :thumbs_up i think we have an aluminium baking pan. i have some aluminum angle stock too, & maybe i could just throw small pieces in the mix & use my stainless pan. ?? :hihi:

 

the urine keeps coming up so we better pinch our noses and enquire about the chemistry. what chemicals are in urine? is it acidic or basic? what exactly makes stale urine "stale"? how long will a gallon take to go stale and should i be noticing a color change or taste change first? :eek: seriously though, i better read up on urine chemistry if for nothing else the jokes. i seem to recall reading about urine being used to make white leather too. :shrug: damn resorceful our dead & dyeing ancestors, eh what? :lol:

 

i have my canvas swatches soaking in the vinegar, a 5% solution says the bottle, and will dry them tomorrow and try with the alder dye again.

 

there is a lot to learn yet but already i have every confidence that i can consistently put a permanent medium gray plant-derived dye on cotton. :) i bought the raw canvas to stretch my own artist canvases and for a couple of my previous paintings i painted the entire canvas gray first. i'm thinking now to try a dyed background instead of painting it.

 

that's that. . . . . . . .

[Mercedes Benzene]

the urine keeps coming up so we better pinch our noses and enquire about the chemistry. what chemicals are in urine? is it acidic or basic? what exactly makes stale urine "stale"? how long will a gallon take to go stale and should i be noticing a color change or taste change first? :D seriously though, i better read up on urine chemistry if for nothing else the jokes. i seem to recall reading about urine being used to make white leather too. :hihi: damn resorceful our dead & dyeing ancestors, eh what? :thumbs_up

 

Urine is (obviously) mostly water. The other components consist largely of urea, potassium and sodium salts, and the organic metabolic products of pretty much everything else that enters your body (that it doesn't use). These include byproducts of the breakdown of drugs and unnecessary organic components of food. "Ideal" urine is pH neutral, although I'd imagine this varies greatly on both ends of the spectrum (slightly acidic or slightly neutral).

[freeztar]

And the award goes to Turtle, for most smileys used in a post. :D (I like the jester...forgot about that one)

 

Urine is typically neutral, but it can be acidic or basic.

I'm not sure how this plays into the role of it being a mordant, unless the people using it for dyeing were getting a micturation of acidic urine (or some sort of salts that ameliorate the mordanting(?)). :hihi:

[Turtle]

And the award goes to Turtle, for most smileys used in a post. (I like the jester...forgot about that one)

:shrug: :shrug:

 

Urine is typically neutral, but it can be acidic or basic.

I'm not sure how this plays into the role of it being a mordant, unless the people using it for dyeing were getting a micturation of acidic urine (or some sort of salts that ameliorate the mordanting(?)). :D

 

roger. will do more reading. :D

 

i did the vinegar soaked/dried swatch in the cold alder dye & got a very light reddish-brown. too light to get a good photo, so no photo at all.

 

my unca al posted in ganoderma's thread start and rather than pester him to post it here I'm quoting it all.

 

Dye that binds to cloth only by adsorption will not be washfast. The equilibrium is dynamic and goes in both directions. You need a dye that covalently bonds and is therefore irreversibly bound. The oldest way to do this is with mordants.

 

Take your undyed cloth, saturate it with a dilute solution of alum, chrome alum, (reduced) chromium sulfate, or iron ammonium sulfate. Wring out well, then plunge into a solution of washing soda (wear gloves). Hydroxide gels of aluminum, chromium, or iron precipitate and bind within the fibers. Wringm out and immediately plunge into the dye solution. Hydroxide gels strongly bind the dyes (often with color change). Wring out and let dry, then warm and dry. The gels dehydrate into refractory oxides that permanently bind the dyes and that to the fibers. Wash alone once or twice to get out the loose stuff.

 

A second possibilty is vat dyes. Oxidized dyes that are water-insoluble (indigo) often reversibly form water-soluble (uncolored) reduced species. Thus macerated indigo plant is allowed to anaerobically ferment. Cloth is plunged into the reduced odorous muck and wrung out. As the wet cloth hits the air it turns that wonderful indigo blue by reaction with oxygen. Indigo is washfast but not lightfast. Wash once or twice to get out the loose stuff. Red beet juice is the elegant molecule betanidine, remarkably strongly bound by mordants.

 

Oregon-grape - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The inner bark and roots have yellow berberine with an unusual molecular structure.

 

Modern methods are fiber-reactive dyes - Procion, Cibacron, Remazole - and disperse dyes for plastic fibers (polyester). Foron Brillant Blue into polyester is INSANELY blue. Black umbrellas are aniline black formed by polymerizing the dye directily within the fiber.

 

"Color Chemistry" by Heinrich Zollinger is a good read.

 

thanks unca al! your descriptions are better writ (that's a dye joke. :doh:) than the others i've been reading, and more detailed on procedure. when in doubt about dyeing, ask an organic chemist. go figure. :)

 

i have beets in the garden and oregon grape is ubiquitous here in several species.

[Ganoderma]

Your beats vs my dragon fruit. Let the battle for reds and purples begin!

 

h1.jpg picture by plantsss - Photobucket

 

 

 

I am wondering, do things like pollen need a mordant? whenever i brush up against a lily in a floral arrangement, every time i think "that would make a good dye!" but i could see it washing out fairly easily, so i would think some kind of fixative would be needed for things like clothing.

 

 

these may be interesting to you turtle, or anyoe else looking at this approach.

 

http://www.biologymad.com/resources/BEETROOT%20PIGMENT2.doc

Study of Optimal Temperature, pH and Stability of Dragon Fruit (<I>Hylocereus polyrhizus</I>) Peel for Use as Potential Natural Colorant

[Turtle]

Your beats vs my dragon fruit. Let the battle for reds and purples begin!

 

i did some reading on the beets as a dye, but apparently it's not very colorfast. i'm not sure the passion fruit will fair any better. :(

 

I love the beet juice that comes from cooking beets, is there a way I can use this to dye a white cotton and have it stay? Also pokeberries, how can I make a dye using these beauties? and set it as well?Â*

Most natural dyes perform relatively poorly on cotton. You should use wool, instead, for your natural dyeing experiments. Buy some alum to use in mordanting your fiber.

 

No, there is no way to make beet juice dye cotton red and have it stay. Even on wool, beets are no use for dyeing. Beet juice is pretty in the pot, but it's an exceptionally crummy dye. Look at the following page for samples of beet dyeing on different fibers:

Beets as a natural dye (Dye Forum post from January 10, 2006)

Even using a whole pound of beets produced only a light tan on wool, and barely more than a dirty beige on any other fiber. The problem is that it takes more than color to make a dye: a substance must also be able to cling to the fiber for it to be used as a good dye. Beets are so inferior as a dye that it's rather a waste of time to even try them. It is better to use another substance that has been found by generations of dyers to work far better. ...

 

I am wondering, do things like pollen need a mordant? whenever i brush up against a lily in a floral arrangement, every time i think "that would make a good dye!" but i could see it washing out fairly easily, so i would think some kind of fixative would be needed for things like clothing.

 

i thought of saffron right away, and found this. of course there is no substitute for experimenting. ;)

 

setting the dye in a dress dyed with natural saffron

Natural saffron, whose active ingredient is the chemical crocin, from the stigmas of the saffron crocus, is a substantive dye that can be used on cotton and linen as well as silk and wool. Unlike most natural dyes, it does not require a mordant, because it is a direct dye. The size of the molecule itself helps it to associate with the cellulose fiber. Like the dye found in turmeric, saffron as a dye color is called fugitive, which means that it will not last long, so it must be redyed regularly. The monks in Tibet who wear saffron robes dyed with turmeric are said to redye their robes every year. Saffron is very expensive, but turmeric is an inexpensive natural substitute....

 

these may be interesting to you turtle, or anyoe else looking at this approach.

 

http://www.biologymad.com/resources/BEETROOT%20PIGMENT2.doc

Study of Optimal Temperature, pH and Stability of Dragon Fruit (<I>Hylocereus polyrhizus</I>) Peel for Use as Potential Natural Colorant

 

roger. looks like they are in experimental stage. per my earlier reference above, i suspect passion fruit will not make a very good dye. :eek2: