**3.4 Alginates in the textile industry**

Color paste substrates are prepared using textile-grade alginates in the application of patterns in print fabrics, shawls, towels, and other products. Alginates are cleaner and easier to decompose substrate for textile printing than other substrates. Alginates application in printing cotton, jute, and rayon allows for easier disposal of wastewater. Sodium alginates are thickeners used in textile printing to thicken the dye paste.

Screen or roller printing devices may be used to apply the pastes to the cloth. Alginates became common thickeners with the discovery of reactive dyes. The cellulose in the cloth reacts chemically with these substances. Many popular thickeners, such as starch, react with reactive dyes, resulting in lower color yields and sometimes difficultto-wash-out by-products. Alginates are the strongest thickeners for reactive dyes because they non-reactive with the dyes and quickly washout from the finished textile.

In older screen printing the alginate of medium to high viscosity is used, whereas in modern high-speed roller printers even low viscosity alginates are giving very attractive printing.

### **3.5 Welding rods**

Welding is the technique finds application building all kind of structures with metals. In the welding, process coating is used as a flux and to monitor conditions near the weld, such as temperature, and oxygen, and hydrogen. In this case, sodium silicate (water glass) is mixed with the dry coating ingredients to provide some of the plasticity needed for coating extrusion into the rod and to tie the dried coating to the rod. The silicate, on the other hand, neither binds nor provides enough lubrication to allow for successful and smooth extrusion. A lubricant and a binder are needed to keep the damp mass together before extrusion and to keep the coating on the rod in form throughout drying and baking [88]. To achieve these standards, alginates are used.
