Comenius Project

“All Equal at European Schools”

13th-17th February 2012

France visits our school

classes involved :2C1-2C2

“MELTING COLOURS”

CHEMISTRY LAB WORKSHOP

The final day of the experience of Lycée Stanislas in Como, Setificio, included a workshop in textile finishing chemistry.Our students of 2C2 proposed a “dyeing chemical happening” based on their lab experiences in chemistry: in order to understand principles of chemical equilibrium, kinetics, acids and basesand so on, they studied what happens when a dyestuff is fixed to a fibre, and how. But, why are some dyestuffs able to dye cellulose and not polyester, and vice versa?To show this apparently magic behaviour, they made some experiments with direct dyes, suitable for cellulose, and with disperse dyes suitable for poly(ethylene terephtalate) - PET, the chemical name of the most common polyester.On Thursday morning, every student (and teacher!) of the Alsatian group received a “postcardfrom Como” that was expressly designed and weaved for this work, weft in rayon (cellulose)and warp in PET. It represents a picture of the Camerlata Fountain, with the Baradello Tower faron the hill, that we saw on our Wednesday bus tour to Milan.They were asked to choose the colour that they liked for drawing and writings, and anothercolour for the background. Then, they had to walk across our “chemical restaurant” to get fromour students the required doses of dyestuff solutions, along with two salt solutions and a surfactant (“detergent”) emulsion. After completing the dyeing liquor with deionized water, theyinserted the cloth sample and the liquor inside a pressurized godet, and all the godets wereinserted in an infrared automatic dyeing machine that is running a temperature program duringabout two and half hours.When temperature was lowered, they could extract their fabric “postcards”,rinse them and... look!After drying, these unique pieces became a souvenir of their days in Como.

THE ORIGINAL PICTURE AND ITS CONVERSION

Image information: the original 35 mm slide(http://twitpic.com/69yg9b) and

its digital post-production are by Sergio Palazzi,under the “supervision” of2C2 students and of our headmistress Anna Cornaggia.

Their conversion on an electronic Jacquard file and subsequent weaving are by our teachers Lina Graziano and Paola Della Torre, who are training the students of our Textile Design course.

Weaving has been done on our most recent Jacquard looms, that our Alsatian

guests did see during our first visit toSetificio's laboratories.

THE FOUNTAIN IN CAMERLATA SQUAREEffect directly on the loom with a dark weft on white

warp

THE WOVEN SAMPLE

THE COLOURS

Preliminary colour variants

STUDENTS AT WORK

POURING THE LIQUOR INSIDE THE GODET

BUSY TIME AT “OUR CHEMICAL RESTAURANT”

THE AUTOMATIC DYEING MACHINE

THE OPENING OF THE GODETS

THE RINSING MOMENT

THE DRYING OVEN

THE FINAL RESULT

STUDENTS WITH THEIR “ UNIQUE” SOUVENIRS