Surface alteration of polyamide fibers by polyamidoamine dendrimers and optimization of treatment process using neural network towards improving their dyeing properties

•We modified the polyamide fibers with polyamidoamine dendrimers of zero, first and second generations towards improving their dyeing properties.•The optimized condition of modification was achieved using GMDH-NN and ICA methods, dendrimer: 2%, pH: 10, time: 20 min and temperature: 90 °C.•Modified fibers were dyed with C I Acid orange 2.•Dyeability of modified fibers were increased 30 times compared to unmodified ones.

The surface of the nylon fabric was modified by prepared 2,4,6-trichloro-1,3,5-triazine-conjugated polyamidoamine dendrimer. Four-factor (temperature, pH, time and amount of dendrimer), five-level central composite design, artificial intelligence methods called group method of data handling neural network and imperialist competitive algorithm were used to optimize the modification condition. The modification was performed at the optimized condition and the modified fabrics were dyed with C I Acid orange 2. Surface characteristics and dye-ability of the treated fabrics were examined via contact angle measurements, UV–visible spectrophotometer and color strength of dyed fabrics. The contact angle and time of water absorption confirmed higher hydrophobicity of the fabrics. Data showed improvement on the dye-ability of the modified nylon which could be attributed to bonding of amino functional groups on the surface. The exhaustion and adsorption of the dye by modified fabrics might be related to the protonated amino end groups.

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