Identification, extraction, and application of orange peel color extracts for silk fabric coloration

Under-utilized orange peel waste contains natural colorants that might be used for textile dyeing. Research into orange peel waste as natural colorants provides benefits for both the agricultural and fashion industry with a creative and sustainable solution. This research performed the extraction of colorants from the orange peel as plant dyes and investigated their potential dyeing capability of silk fabrics. With full factorial analysis, we determined the optimal extraction conditions by comparing 100 % ethanol, 70 % ethanol, and water, aiming to achieve the highest absorbance for the extracted solution. Conditions obtained with the best performance include an extraction temperature of 60 °C, an extraction time of 120 min, and a material-to-liquor ratio of 1:20 (wt/vol) for both 100 % and 0 % ethanol. To attain the highest K/S values on textiles with orthogonal experimental design, the optimal dyeing profiles of silk fabrics with water solution were found to be 100 °C, 60 min, pH 3, and Liquid Ratio of 1:15. Colorfastness results of crocking, washing, and sunlight are in favor of the usage of orange peel color extracts for textile application.