Achillea Millefolium, a New Source of Natural Dye for Wool Dyeing‎

T oday, natural colorants are ‎emerging globally due to the fact ‎that they are safer and more ‎environmentally-friendly. Natural ‎dyes have been employed in dyeing ‎Persian carpet piles for many ‎years. In this study, the dried ‎Achillea was used for dyeing wool ‎yarns. The Iranian wool yarn was ‎scoured, mordanted using Cu, Sn, ‎Al salts and then dyed with ‎different amounts of dried Achillea ‎powder. Taguchi statistical method ‎was employed to find the effective ‎factors and results of the planned ‎experiments, in order to optimize ‎the dyeing factors. A L9 orthogonal ‎array (four factors in three levels) ‎was employed to evaluate the ‎effects of different parameters in ‎dyeing process. The colorimetric ‎properties of the dyed yarns were ‎evaluated in CIELAB system. ‎Achillea found to have good ‎agronomic potential as a natural ‎dye in Iran. Dyeing with Achillea ‎in conjunction with metal ‎mordants showed enhancement in ‎its fastness properties. Therefore it ‎shows commercial capability for ‎dyeing of wool yarns used as ‎Persian carpet piles.‎