Dyeing Cotton Knitgoods after 40 years of Jet Machines

It is now over 40 years ago, at the ITMA exhibition of 1967 in Basel, Switzerland, that
the first jet dyeing machine was launched internationally by the American manufacturer,
Gaston County. The principle of using water flow, accelerated through a constriction (or
venturi jet), to transport fabric in a rope dyeing machine had been patented in the 1950s
by Burlington Industries, Pacific Division and Gaston County machines had been running
in the USA for some years but, for most of us, this was the first glimpse of the future for
fabric dyeing.

Initially, the machines gained a wide acceptance due to their ability to dye texturised
polyester fabrics, which were then very popular. These fabrics had proved very difficult
to dye level in pressurised winch machines and needed a good deal of physical action
during dyeing to develop adequate fabric bulk. The consumer quickly tired of these
fabrics, which had many less than ideal comfort properties for clothing or household
textiles. However, a clear opportunity for the new dyeing technology presented itself
with the growth in fashion for knitted cotton and cotton blend fabrics for casual clothing
and underwear. This growth in comfortable fabrics for leisure and active apparel
continues unabated to the present day. Very soon new ‘softflow’ or ‘overflow’ machines
were introduced to dye cotton fabrics with excellent levelness, like the original jet
machines, but, by using lifter reels to aid fabric transport, with rather more gentleness as
is necessary with less robust fabrics. Long tube machines were also introduced for light
weight fabrics and wovens, especially woven synthetics. The long machines gave less
creasing of rigid woven structures but round shaped machines have remained the most
successful overall, for dyeing cotton and cotton rich fabrics, because of space
considerations in the dyehouse and also lower water consumption and therefore lower
running costs.

Inspired by the success of continuous dyeing and particularly pad-batch dyeing of woven
cotton fabrics and by Lister’s work on foam dyeing, manufacturers soon realised that jet
dyeing technology offered the chance to dye fabrics batchwise, in rope form, with much
lower liquor ratios. The new fashion for brightly coloured knitted outerwear fabrics for
informal clothing was also enabled by the availability of fibre reactive dyes which gave
excellent washing fastness. Unfortunately, a large proportion of the reactive dye was
‘lost’ to reaction with water (hydrolysis). This, as well as wasting dye, also caused
problems with rinsing out the dye which was not reacted with the cellulosic fibres. Since
the proportion of hydrolysed dye is reduced at lower liquor ratios, this was the original
stimulation to reduce the water used in dyeing (in those early years at liquor ratios as high
as 1:40 down to around 1:10). Subsequently, dye manufacturers have produced dyes
with yields less influenced by liquor ratio changes (at least between the now more or less
universal already low ratios of less than 1:8) and the stimulation to reduce total water
consumption in the production of coloured cotton (rather than just liquor ratio in dyeing)
is related to costs of water and heating energy.

The demand for comfortable clothing in a wide range of shades has continued to grow
and today knitted fabrics have moved beyond merely leisurewear and are even used in
outerwear for more formal occasions and work. The jet dyeing machine remains
dominant for dyeing knitted fabrics for all end-uses be they of natural, manmade or
synthetic fibre construction. Other technologies have been proposed, particularly pad-
batch dyeing, but none of these have provided the soft bulky handle and good covering
properties demanded by the high quality markets of Europe and North America.

Over the last 15 or 20 years, the jet dyeing machine market for knitted cotton destined for
high quality outlets has come to be dominated by 2 particular but quite different
technologies. Both are aimed at optimising high quality, in respect of level dyeing to
high fastness, together with minimising the variable costs of dyeing (ie: utilities, direct
labour and dyes/chemicals). The first versions of both technologies were introduced in
the early 1990s. On the one hand there are machines in which the fabric is transported by
a mixed flow of air and water (as typified by the current Then Airflow and Thies Luft
Roto machines) and on the other there are machines with a very long transport tube with
2 liquor jets in series for each rope (as in the Sclavos Athena machine).

The principle of using air to assist the transport of the fabric through the machine is
intended to permit processing at ultra low liquor ratios of 1:3 for synthetics and 1:4 for
cotton and cotton rich blends. The perceived advantages are reduced reactive dye costs
for cotton due to improved yields at lower liquor ratios, reduced cost of those chemicals
which are calculated on the basis of concentration and reduced costs of water and steam.
Actually the situation is not quite so clear cut for several reasons. The dye manufacturers
have since the 1980s produced ranges of reactive dyes where the influence of liquor ratio
changes between 1:8 (which is a norm for older technology machines) and 1:4 are
negligible. The few dyes where there is a yield difference often have poor solubility and
present problems for dyeing at low liquor ratios anyway (eg turquoise phthalocyanine
dyes). Due to the low liquor ratio being a negative influence for any cleaning or washing
operation, as well as presenting problems with fibre lubrication and even fabric damage,
often the chemical concentrations have to be increased at lower liquor ratios. Finally, so
far as reactive dyeing of cotton and viscose fibres is concerned, the major water usage
comes from the rinsing and soaping processes to remove unreacted and hydrolysed dye
and in these cases using a lower liquor ratio in most cases results in extended soaping
times and the need for more rinsing baths. Difficulties have also been caused for dyers,
who historically have addressed several dyeing faults by increasing the liquor ratio.
Unfortunately, with these ultra low liquor machines that option is not available but the
senior management of dyeing companies are understandably reluctant to increase dye or
chemical costs to solve technical problems when this already represents the
overwhelming variable cost aspect for textile dyeing. Nevertheless, air jet machines have
been very successful for dyeing synthetics, where the cost advantages of lower liquor
ratios are obvious and in dyeing single jersey cotton fabrics to a good levelness despite
problems with hairiness and pilling. It should be noted that the earlier generations of air-
jet machine used a mixed stream of air and water to transport the fabric and circulate the
dye liquor. More recently the Thies Luft Roto has employed a jet stream of dye liquor
situated before the mechanical lifter reel and an air jet after the lifter reel for fabric
transport. It is implied by the manufacturer that this system will help dye-fabric
interchange during the process. Whilst this is debatable, it is likely that removal of
impurities during preparation and rinsing after dyeing may be improved compared with
other ultra low liquor technologies.

The Twin Soft Flow technology has frequently been copied but the originators, Sclavos,
remain the dominant player with this approach. Sclavos first became well known outside
Greece in the late 1980s with a modified winch machine for tubular knitted fabric in
which the fabric was ballooned by air injection. Despite the technical limitations of the
machine, which was called the Diplo, Sclavos were very successful because of the
excellent physical appearance of fabric dyed by this means. Consequently, they
developed a jet machine, based on a new technology, which would produce dyed fabric
of a similar quality in respect of surface appearance, low creasing and residual shrinkage
but without the difficulties in operation. The fundamental concept is to run fabric
through a log transport tube with two jet nozzles in series. This permits fabric transport
with a much lower jet pressure than on other machines thus minimising fabric surface
damage. A particularly gentle environment is created because between the two jets the
fabric is essentially in a fully flooded machine so we have a high liquor to goods ratio in
the most interactive part of the machine but can maintain an overall very low liquor level
in the body of the vessel. Furthermore, because of this long intensive zone there is a very
high degree of fabric to liquor interchange, which permits level dyeing at a lower fabric
speed and also allows rapid removal of impurities during preparation as well as rinsing
and soaping processes. The machine can operate efficiently at overall liquor ratios of as
low as 1:4.5 or as high as 1:10 but is most commonly used at 1:5 -1:6. The Twin Soft
Flow system resulted in some unexpected benefits including the possibility of a very
effective plaiting system which reduces the propensity for tangling compared with other
machines. The most impressive side effect, however, was the possibility of developing
novel rinsing systems. These have developed from Microwash through Aquachron and
Wisdom to the current Aquachron II system. All of these are based on introducing fresh
liquor, preheated to the bath temperature, directly into the jets and removing dirty liquor
from the machine at its most concentrated and without filtering this contaminated liquor
through the fabric. The developments of the technology over the last 14 years have
mostly been related to utilisation of the ever growing possibilities of electronic control.
The result is that rinsing processes are shorter than in conventional machines and use
much less water. The Sclavos Athena machine is very successful in dyeing knitted cotton
fabrics but has a particular advantage over other jet machines in respect of its gentleness
which permits effective processing of very delicate fabric types including
viscose/elastomeric, cotton/elastomeric and delicate synthetic fabrics constructed with
microfibres. The versatility of this machine is also impressive and many fabrics are
being dyed which would normally have to be dyed, less economically, in different types
of machine. These include polyamide/elastomeric, woven cotton and even woollen spun
wool fabrics. Since jet dyeing has a major advantage over other machine types in respect
of dyeing costs for small and medium batch sizes this versatility is an important
consideration in machine selection.

So, after 40 years of jet dyeing, we are able, using the 2 dominant jet dyeing technologies,
to dye almost any weft knitted construction as well as many warp knits and wovens at
low liquor ratios in round type machines at low liquor ratios, although long tube jets are
still preferred for worsted wool and woven synthetic fabrics. It is now common place to
at least dream of dyehouses producing 4 batches per 24 hours of reactive dyed cotton
knits (although the number of factories where this productivity is actually and
consistently achieved are very few) and real average water consumptions in cotton
knitgoods dyehouses can be as low as 50 litres per kilogram. In every case it is now
much easier to control fabric quality in respect of levelness, shrinkage and surface quality.
The selection between air-jet and twin soft flow has to be made on the basis of the actual
production demands with a tendency to favour air jet for synthetics and more robust
cotton blends and to favour twin soft flow for delicate fabrics and high quality cotton
knits and also for difficult shade areas.

There are still problems for the jet dyer. At this time, throughout the world, dyers
struggle with shading along the fabric length in mode shades such as olive, khaki, beige
and chocolate brown. Sometimes these shade variations are between pieces and are due
to changes in yarn merge (changes which are not always communicated to the knitter and
dyer). They have sometimes been attributed to rope to rope variations in shade but,
whilst this is a problem in very large machines (more than 6 chambers) due to limited
circulation of liquor across the machine compared with from front to back, it is not today
the main cause of such problems even in ultra low liquor machines. Really the problem
is that dyers are forced to use less than ideal combinations of dyes in respect of level on
tone build-up, because of considerations of cost and metamerism. The answer here is not
with the machine maker but requires a full and informed communication from all parts of
the manufacturing process with the retailer. Shade specification by the retailer should
include consideration of the problems faced by the dyer in meeting increasingly difficult
cost demands at the same time as he magically creates shade matches on many different
materials (sometimes even non-textile materials) with zero metamerism.