Effect of cationisation on reactive printing of leather and wool

The resurgent interest in clothes made of leather and wool substrates has led to developments of brilliant colours with different shades on leather and wool that hold promise for reopening this market for the two substrates. It is necessary to use more than one class of dyestuff under variety of conditions and to modify the two components before printing. Fiber reactive dyes with three different reactive groups, mono-chloro triazine (Cibacron Yellow P6GS), dichloro-triazine (Procion Red MX-5B) and vinyl sulphone (Remazol Brilliant Orange FR), were used to print both unmodified and modified, i.e. cationised leather and wool substrates using Tenofix Extra ECO and Solfix E cationic reagents. Pre-cationisation of leather and wool brings an improvement in the depth of the obtained prints as well as washing and light fastness properties.