Revisiting the sublimation printability of cellulose-based textiles in light of ever-increasing sustainability issues

Sustainability, being a recent buzzword, has been given an increasing emphasis in all industry fields, especially in the textile industry, since it is one of the main contributing sectors to resource consumption and thus environmental pollution. Among them, coloration of textiles should be paid special attention due to offering enormous savings in terms of sustainability. Within all fibres, cotton, being one of the cellulosic fibres, has been the most widely used material alone or together with poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET). Therefore, we focus on the coloration of cellulose-based fibres and its blends with PET in this review. There is only one single coloration technique at the intersection of sustainability and coloration, that is, sublimation or heat transfer printing, because it is the most eco-friendly approach for the coloration of textiles. There are many studies on this issue, in which either cellulose, that is, cotton, or the transfer paper is modified/treated. In spite of many attempts for sublimation printability of cotton and its blends with PET, they still have problems in terms of sustainability that limits its applicability. In light of ever-increasing sustainability issues such as Agenda 2030, new developments are yet to be expected for achieving sustainable coloration of cellulose-based textiles and their blends. Therefore, it is high time to revisit the sublimation printability of cellulose-based textiles, to mention the latest developments considering nanotechnological advancements, and to give a future perspective in this field