FAQ: What is in Procion MX dye powder?

I always assumed that the dye powder for the unmixed Procion MX type colors was pure, so I was interested to see a description of its ingredients in Ivanov's "Reactive Dyes in Biology." The powder contains the dye itself, plus a buffer - a mixture of potassium dihydrogen phosphate and disodium hydrogen phosphate, which helps keep the pH neutral - an unspecified "diluant" - I'd assumed only the mixed colors were diluted, but dilution would help in maintaining a consistant strength from one batch to another - and small amounts of "surface active" agents to reduce the dustiness of the powder.

The buffer helps to prolong the life of the dye powder, but even with the buffer, hydrolysis - the same process that occurs after the dye is mixed with water - does occur at a slow rate. After hydrolysis, the dye may still work as an acid dye on wool and similar fibers, but it will no longer be able to bind to cellulose as a reactive dye.

diluants

It is standard practice to dilute dyes so that they will be a standardized, predictable strength.

Some dyehouses pride themselves on never using salt, citing it as a problem for direct application of dye. Without salt, they say, you have much less rinsing to do before using Synthrapol or other detergent to remove the excess dye from your project. Colorado Wholesale Dyes makes quite a point of this.

Popular diluants include a dispersing agent called Tamol - I gather that this is a synthetic version of tannic acid - and sodium sulfate ('glauber's salt'). Sucrose - ordinary table sugar - also makes a good diluant. Tamol is light and "fluffy", while sodium sulfate is heavier, so for a given dye weight sulfate has an advantage in not requiring as large of a container. Tamol has the advantage of helping to dissolve the dye. Sodium sulfate may cause Procion MX type turquoise MX-G to dye more intensely, so it can create problems in reproducibility if your dyes do not always contain the same diluant.

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