Extraction of Palas dye for its use in Textile Coloration

Abstract

Natural colorants are emerging globally as the safer and eco-friendly leaving synthetic colorant behind in the race. An attempt has been made to extract the dye from fresh, shade dried; field dropped and sun dried flowers of Butea monosperma (Palas). A good quantity of crude dye was recovered to the extent of 4, 18 and 9 per cent respectively on weight basis. The compounds present in the flowers were analyzed through spectral means and identified as Chalcone, butein (C15H12O5), orange yellow needles and a small quantities of colourless isomeric flavanone, butin (C15H12O5), and its glycoside, butrin. The crude dye after further purification and refining has tremendous scope as a medicine or ingredient for other medicine and can also serve as colouring material in soft drinks and other food products like ham/sausages, jam, chowmin noodles etc. Highlights • Method of palas dye extraction methodology have been standardized • The yield of dye using cold percolation and soxhlet method of extraction were 4% and 2%, respectively • The dye extract was fractionated through solvent extraction techniques using solvent like hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate and n-butanol • The separated constituents were characterized through physical determination of melting points, boiling points and instrumental methods like UV and Infra red (IR) and GC-MS • Compounds identified from the palas dye were chalcone, small quantities of colourless isomeric flavanone, butin and its glycoside, butrin.