Suchada Ujjin

Study on the Dyeing Properties of Poly(Lactic Acid) and Silk Yarns with Natural Dyes

This research aimed to study the dyeing properties on the PLA and silk yarns of the natural dyes obtained from various materials, viz. marigold petals (Tagetes erecta L.), rhubarb rhizomes (Radix et Rhizoma Rhei), garcinia barks (Garcinia Dulcis Kurz), turmeric rhizomes (Curcuma Longa Linn.), sappan barks (Caesalpinia sappan Linn.) and catechu barks (Acacia catechu Willd.). The color properties of the dyed yarns was determined and compared. The results observed the different color properties (L*, a* and b* values) and a shift of λmax of the dyes on the PLA and silk yarns. This change in color properties of each natural dye was expected to be affected by the types of substrate (textile fiber) and also the chemical nature of the natural dyes. The study of the build-up properties indicated that the turmeric dye is the only natural dye which showed an outstanding performance on PLA and silk. A high degree of color yield of turmeric dye was obtained on both yarns, whereas a poor build-up was observed for the rest of the dyes.

Development of an Information Integration and Knowledge Fusion Platform for Spatial and Time Based Advisory Services: Precision Farming as a Case Study

One of the most challenging knowledge services is to provide information relevant enough to support making effective decisions in real time. Even though many sources of relevant data and knowledge are available on websites at any given time, they are scattered and offer little or no information on the semantic relationships, thus making such sources hard to exploit. This paper proposes an approach to developing a spatial and time-based advisory system by using ontology for aggregating data from heterogeneous databases, and from devices such as climate sensors and mobile phones, using shallow parsing to extract the domain-specific concepts and their attributes from semi-structured text, and using production rules to activate functional knowledge formalized from natural language text that is dispersed across the Web. Precision farming for rice is used as a case study since it relies upon intensive sensing of environmental conditions of the crop, extensive data handling and processing, and farmer knowledge. This work aims to support resource-poor farmers toward higher productivity while minimizing costs. The service offered is to therefore provide personal assistance, thus enhancing a farmers ability to apply actions effectively according to the crop calendar, i.e. the optimal use of pesticides and nutrients in heterogeneous field situations that affect crop quality and reduce risk.

Optimized Vatting Condition Study for Natural Indigo Dyeing on Silk Yarn

This research studied the optimized dyeing conditions for natural indigo dye (Indigofera tinctoria) on silk yarn. Vatting of natural indigo dye was investigated under different temperatures and times and the natural dyeing auxiliaries were used i.e. tamarind and ash solutions. The results informed the optimum vatting condition for the indigo dye at 90°C for 30 minutes and the optimum pH was 12. The sugars in tamarind solution was expected to work as a reducing agent for dye vatting whereas the ash solution derived from banana barks was used as an alkalinity controller. Dyeing silk yarns with leuco indigo dye under a short time (5 minutes) provided a complete dye distribution with satisfactory color strength on silk and very good fastness properties.

Effect of Fabric Structure and Degumming Conditions on the Properties of PLA/Silk Blend

o C) brought about an eroded fiber surface and deteriorated the fabric strength. The PLA/silk blended fabrics were prepared into different fabric structures and their properties i.e. strength, density and stiffness, were investigated. The fabric properties before and after degumming under a recommended conditions were compared. Index Terms—Poly (lactic acid), silk, blended fabric, degumming.