Computer color-matching (CCM) and the levelness of poly(ethylene glycol)-based reverse-micellar dyed wool fabrics in octane and nonane were investigated and compared with a conventional water-based dyeing system. Reflectance curves and calibration curves exhibited no chromatic change and maintained high linearity in both dyeing systems. The linearity of water-dyed calibration curves was slightly higher than that of the reverse-micellar dyed curves. The color yield, in term of K/Ssum values, of solvent-dyed samples was found to be generally higher than that of water-based dyed samples at various calibrated dye concentrations. The concentrations predicted by CCM were close to the theoretical concentrations for both dyeing methods. This indicates that octane- and nonane-assisted reverse-micellar dyeing of wool is able to generate color recipes comparable to the conventional water-based dyeing system. The solvent-dyed samples, measured by the relative unlevelness indices (RUI), exhibit good-to-excellent levelness, which is highly comparable with the water-dyed samples.
Keywords: color-matching; levelness; non-ionic surfactant; nonane; octane; reactive dye; reverse micelle; wool fiber.