Reusing Cotton Dye-Bath Effluent for Polyester Dyeing

Over the generations, the textile industry has built a reputation as one of the world’s biggest water consumers and polluters. Today, the shift in environmental and social awareness impacts textile markets and production techniques. This paper describes a unique way to reduce the intake of freshwater for the dyeing process in the textile industry. Efforts have been made to utilize reactive, basic, and direct dye-bath effluents directly as liquor in polyester dyeing for 0.5, 2, and 4% shade of primary colors. The obtained result shows that the fabric dyed in effluents has acceptable color strength and color difference as that of the conventional dyeing process with freshwater. The fastness properties of all the dyed fabrics were good to excellent. Thus, this process can effectively reduce the intake of freshwater by about 30,000 L/ton. Also, it has an economic benefit and can save 450 Rs/ton. Thus, the findings prove that effluents generated from the cotton dyeing unit can be used directly for polyester dyeing.