Phytochemical screening of onion skin (Allium cepa) dye extract

Abstract

The phytochemicals are the wide variety of compounds produced by the plants manipulated wisely to use them in dyeing and finishing textile materials to impart antibacterial and colouring property to the textile materials. The antibacterial textiles also play an important role medical textile. Phytochemical screening is an important step which indentifies the presence of compounds in different organic solvents such as ethanol, methanol and using aqueous extracts. In the present study the phytochemical analysis of onion skin extracts was done. The results of the study indicated the presence of tannins, antraquinone, flavonoids, cadiacgycocides and reducing sugars in aqueous medium. FTIR analysis of onion skin dye powder revealed the presence of different functional groups viz. hydroxyl group, methylene–CH- stretch, carbonyl group (C=O) and aldehyde group, C=C stretch, quinone or conjugated ketone and organic sulphates, OH – bend. Among different phytochemicals the antraquinone, tannins and favonoids play an important role in imparting and enhancing the colour to cotton fabric.