Dyes Used in Textile Industry

Colours have always fascinated man and right from the pre historic times he has always tried to use colour in whichever way possible in his life. Initially they were extracted from nature (i.e., from flowers, fruits) and these colours were known as the natural colours. He had been using various means to decorate the clothes he wore and here the chief source of colouring matter, until about a century ago, was natural colours especially the ones obtained from nature. These natural colours were initially used to dye natural fibres like cotton, wool, linen, silk etc. With the advent of industrialization man started dyeing clothes on a commercial basis and then his main aim was to find a way to increase the production at the least expense. It was soon realized that the method of extraction of natural dyes and their application were lengthy and laborious. This gave the impetus to development of synthetic dyestuffs.