Colorants

Introduction

Colorants are characterized by their ability to absorb or emit light in the visible range. Light of a
given wavelength is perceived as the indicated color. Substances that impart color to a material are
dyes and pigments. In term of chemical structure, colorants can be inorganic or organic compounds.
Both groups can be subdivided into natural and synthetic representatives.

Colorants can be classified into two separate ways, either according to their chemical structure or
according to the method of application, they are dyes and pigments. Every color is representative
of light that is at a particular wavelength or frequency. For example, what we consider as red is
light that has approximately 780 - 620 nm wavelength. When light interacts with molecules, the
molecules absorb the energy from that particular light. This energy can do something to the
molecule. For example, certain wavelengths can make molecules vibrate, make the bonds rotate, or
make the electrons within the molecule become more energetic. Certain molecules can only absorb
certain energies.

Dyes
Dyes are applied to various substrates from a liquid in which they are completely or at least partly
soluble. They must possess specific affinity to a given substrate, which might be a textile, paper,
leather, hair, or other materials. Dyes may be natural or synthetic. Natural dyes come from animals,
minerals, and plants.

A dye must be colored, but it must also able to impart color to something else on a reasonably
permanent basis before it can be considered as a dye. Many correlations have been made between
chemical structure and color. Color result from electronic transitions between molecular orbital.

A dye consists of a color production structure, the chromogen (electron acceptor), and a part to
regulate the solubility and dying properties, the auxochrome (electron donor).

Without both parts, the material is simply a colored body. The chromogen is an aromatic body
containing a color called chromophore. Some molecules lose their colors when the chromophore
group is saturated. Dyes are almost invariably applied to the textile materials from an aqueous
medium, so that they are generally required to dissolve in water.

Pigments
A pigment is a material that changes the color of reflected or transmitted light as the result of
wavelength-selective absorption.

This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms
of luminescence, in which a material emits light.

Pigment is a particulate solid dispersed into a medium without significant solution or other
interactions. They can be divided into two main groups: inorganic and organic, extracted from plants
or animals.

Pigments consist of small particles that are practically insoluble in the medium in which they are
applied and have to be attached to substrate.

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The principal traditional applications of pigments are in paints, printing inks and plastics, although
they are also used more widely, for example, in the coloration of building materials, such as
concrete and cement, and in the ceramics and glass. Applied into a medium by a dispersion process,
which reduces the clusters of solid articles into more finely divided form, but they do not dissolve
in the medium.

A pigment must have a high tinting strength relative to the materials it colors. It must be stable in
solid form at ambient temperatures.

A wide variety of wavelengths (colors) encounter a pigment.

This pigment absorbs red and green light, but reflects blue,
creating the color blue

Difference between pigments and dyes are:

1. Pigments are dispersions in the medium but dyes are solutions.

2. Pigments possess the particulate properties, while dyes do not.
3. Pigments are far more durable and resistant to fading than dyes.
4. Pigments do not possess specific affinity towards substrates while dyes do have.
5. Pigments are mostly metallic or organometallic while dyes are mostly organic.

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Scientific and technical issues

Selection of a pigment for a particular application is determined by cost, and by the physical
properties and attributes of the pigment itself. For example, a pigment that is used to color glass
must have very high heat stability in order to survive the manufacturing process; but, suspended in
the glass vehicle, its resistance to alkali or acidic materials is not an issue. In artistic paint, heat
stability is less important, while light fastness and toxicity are greater concerns.

The following are some of the attributes of pigments that determine their suitability for
particular manufacturing processes and applications:

- Light fastness
- Heat stability
- Toxicity
- Tinting strength
- Staining
- Dispersion
- Opacity or transparency
- Resistance to alkalis and acids
- Reactions and interactions between pigments

Uses of pigments

Pigments are used

- for printing textiles
- for coloration of plastics and rubber
- for coloration of man-made fibres
- for printing ink
- for coloration of materials such as metal plates, foils, etc.
- for surface coating of interior, exterior, automotive and other applications

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Organic vs Inorganic Pigment

Natural inorganic pigments, derived mainly from mineral sources, have been used as colorants since
pre-historic times and a few, notably iron oxides, remain of some significance today. The colour of a
pigment is due to its interactions with light by scattering and absorption.

Many of the earliest organic pigment were known as 'lakes'. These products were prepared from
established water soluble dyes by precipitation on to an insoluble inorganic substrate. A further
significant early development in organic pigments was the introduction of a range of azo pigments.
Copper phthalocyanine blue was the first pigment to offer the outstanding intensity and brightness
of colour typical of organic pigments, combined with an excellence range of fastness properties,
comparable with many inorganic pigments. Organic pigments generally provide higher intensity and
brightness of colour than inorganic pigments. However, organic pigments are unable to provide the
degree of opacity offered by most inorganic pigments because of the lower refractive index
associated with organic crystals. As a rule of thumb, following table can be used as a guide to
explain the difference between organic and inorganic pigments:

Particulars Inorganic Organic

Derivation/Source Minerals Synthesized from oil
Colour Often dull Bright
Tinctoral Strength Low High
Opacity Opaque Transparent
Light Fastness Very Good Poor to Good
Solubility Insoluble in solvents May have some solubility
Physiological properties May have problematic Usually safe
Chemical stability Often sensitive Usually good
Cost Moderate Can be very expensive

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Fluorescence: Fluorescence is the emission of radiation accompanying the deactivation of an
excited species to a lower state of the same multiplicity, e.g., S1 – S0, is a spin allowed process.

Phosphorescence: Phosphorescence is the emission of radiation accompanying the deactivation

of an excited species of a lower state of different multiplicity, e.g., T1 – S0 and is spin forbidden
process.

Chromophore: Unsaturated group or groups with multiple bonds that impart colour to the organic
compound are called chromophores. Examples are the nitro, the nitroso and the azo groups.
A chromophore is part (or moiety) of a molecule responsible for its color. A chromophore is a
region in a molecule where the energy difference between two different molecular orbitalsfalls
within the range of the visible spectrum. Visible light that hits the chromophore can thus be
absorbed by exciting an electron from its ground state into an excited state.
Chromophores almost always arise in one of two forms: conjugated pi systems and metal complexes.

Auxochrome: this is a group of atoms attached to a chromophore which modifies the ability of
that chromophore to absorb light. Example: -OH , - NH2 , Aldehydes. These groups do not impart
colour to the chromogens in the absence of chromophores. However, when the chromogen has a
chromophore, the auxochromes deepens the colour of the chromogen. It is also used to make the
chromogen a dye.
A feature of these auxochromes is the presence of at least one lone pair of electrons which can be
viewed as extending the conjugated system by resonance.
It increases the color of any organic compound. For example, benzene does not display color as it
does not have any chromophore but nitrobenzene is pale yellow color because of the presence of
nitro group. Para-hydroxy nitrobenzene exhibits a deep yellow color. Here an auxochrome (-OH) is
conjugated with the chromophore -NO2. Similar behavior is happens in azo benzene (red color) but
para-hydroxy azobenzene is dark red color.

There are mainly two types of auxochromes-

1. Acidic -COOH, -OH, -SO3H
2. Basic -NHR, -NR2, -NH2

Chromogens:
The compounds containing the chromophoric group are called the chromogens. Depth of their color
increases with the number of chromophores.

Probable Questions

1. What are colorants? Define Chromophore and Auxochrome. Write the differences
between dyes and pigments.

2. a) What are colorants? Define Dyes and Pigments.

b) Write the difference between organic and inorganic Pigments.

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