Optimizing cyanine dye properties for enhanced dyeing and inkjet printing on diverse Substrates: Photophysical and colorimetric investigations

Cyanine-based cationic dyes with different substituents in the donor unit were easily synthesized using readily available starting materials. The prepared dye molecules were spectroscopically characterized by NMR, FT-IR, and HR-Mass, and their thermal stability was measured by TGA, DSC, and XRD. Based on the TGA and DSC measurements, it was concluded that all the dyes are thermally stable up to 200 °C. Also, powder XRD was studied for all dyes to identify the explicit crystallinity and morphological nature of the dyes. A dye dispersion solution was prepared for the proper dyeing of modacrylic fabric and the dyed fabric showed good color strength K/S for dyes R1, R2, and R6 and fragile color strength for R3, R4,and R5. These dyes are also used for printing on substrates like paper and fabric using ink-jet printing. These dyes were also used for transferability printing applications on various fabrics.