Basic dye is a stain that is cationic (+ ve charged) and so will react with material that is (-ve) negatively charged. The cytoplasm of all bacterial cells have a slight negative charge when grown in a medium of near neutral pH and will therefore attract and bind with basic dyes. Some examples of basic dyes are crystal violet, safranin, basic fuchsin and methylene blue. It’s applied to wool, silk, cotton and modified acrylic fibres. Usually acetic acid is added to the dyebath to help the take up of the dye onto the fibre. Basic dyes are also used in the coloration of paper.
Basic dye is a class of dyes, usually synthetic, that act as bases, and which are actually aniline dyes. Their color base is not water soluble but can be made so by converting the base into a salt. The basic dyes, while possessing great tinctorial strength and brightness, are not generally light-fast; therefore their use in the dyeing of archival materials is largely restricted to those materials not requiring this characteristic. Basic dyes were at one time used extensively in dyeing leather, mainly because they are capable of combining directly with vegetable-tanned leather without the use of a mordant. Basic dyes show virtually no migration in acrylic fibers under normal dyeing conditions, compatibility is of major importance in selecting dye combinations with optimum level dyeing behavior.
Basic dyes possess cationic functional groups such as -NR3+ or =NR2+. The name 'basic dye' refers to when these dyes were still used to dye wool in an alkaline bath. Protein in basic conditions develops a negative charge as the -COOH groups are deprotonated to give -COO-. In an electric field the chromophore ion travels to the cathode or negative pole; it is positively charged. Generally forms salts with negatively charged (acidic) substances in tissue (chromatin, ergastoplasm, cartilage matrix, some granules). Affinity for such dyes, is called basophilia. Basic dyes perform poorly on natural fibres, but work very well on acrylics.
The most common anionic group attached to acrylic polymers is the sulphonate group, -SO3-, closely followed by the carboxylate group, -CO2-. These are either introduced as a result of co-polymerisation, or as the residues of anionic polymerisation inhibitors. It is this anionic property which makes acrylics suitable for dyeing with cationic dyes, since there will be a strong ionic interaction between dye and polymer (in effect, the opposite of the acid dye-protein fibre interaction).
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