Cellulosic fabrics printing with multifunctional encapsulated phthalocyanine pigment blue using phase separation method

•Multifunctional citric-acrylate (CAC) encapsulated phthalocyanine pigment blue are formulated.•The encapsulated pigment minimize the driving force of pigment printing on cellulosic fabrics.•The encapsulated pigment accelerated the pigment fixation and reduced the required amount of binder.•The presence of crosslinker could stabilize the encapsulated pigment on the cellulosic fabrics.•The printed fabrics showed good antibacterial performance.

Aqueous dispersions of citric-acrylate (CAC) oligomer encapsulating C.I. Pigment Blue 15:3 (PB15:3) in the presence of glutaraldhyde were formulated using the phase separation method. FT-IR spectroscopy and centrifuge sedimentation are performed to confirm the encapsulation of pigment into CAC oligomer. The prepared capsules were characterized using thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The results revealed that the encapsulated pigment had a profound multifunctional impact and minimized the driving force of pigment printing on the cellulosic fabrics. Besides, the encapsulated pigment accelerated the pigment fixation on cellulosic fabrics without drying in one step and reduced the required amount of the binder, compared with the control sample. Furthermore, the printed fabrics exhibited good antibacterial performance against both Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). The presence of the crosslinker could be stabilized the encapsulated pigment on the cellulosic fabrics. Moreover, the light and washing fastness for the printed fabrics using encapsulated pigment are higher than that in case of using control samples.