Today, there are many alternatives to cotton and viscose fibre like milk fibre, soyabean fibre, bamboo fibre and pineapple fibre and China is far ahead than India in developing alternative sustainable fibres for textile uses, said Dr NN Mahapatra, President of Ahmedabad-based Colorant Ltd, while delivering the GM Nabar endowment lecture recently at the Department of Fibres and Textile Processing Technology, Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), Mumbai.
He spoke on the application of new textile fibres and new dyeing technologies, and also explained about the new dyeing technologies like super critical carbon dioxide medium dyeing of polyester dyeing, salt free reactive dyeing and Colorzen Cationised cotton, some of which displayed at ITMA, Milan.
Dr Mahapatra was welcomed by Prof Dr Adivarekar, Head of Department. Before beginning his lecture, he spoke about Late Prof GM Nabar, who was the Director of UDCT (now ICT) during 1960s. At UDCT, Nabar taught about the technology of desizing, scouring and bleaching.
Lastly he spoke about the scope of textile students in the industries, after which Prof Dr MD Teli gave a vote of thanks and also a memento to Dr Mahapatra.