Cellulase enzymes have now gained industrial acceptance forfinishing processes of cotton goods to improve handle and appearance.
Enzymatic treatments are usually performed either before or afterdyeing and finishing processes of textiles. It is well known that enzymes arenon-toxic, environment friendly biocatalysts. With rapidly advancingbiotechnological research and development efforts, now-a-days it is possible tocustomize and tailor these compounds to suit specific end-uses.
It is evident that cellulase enzymes havegained industrial acceptance for finishing processes of cotton goods to improvehandle and appearance1. Cellulase is an enzyme which breaks downcellulosic materials such as cotton and viscose, and is a complex mixture ofendocellulases, exocellulases, cellobiohydrases, cellobiases and severalothers. Each of these will have a specific action on different parts of acotton fibre. Desizing using amylase enzymes has been well established for manyyears. However, there is still considerable scope for improving the speed,economics and consistency of the process, including the development ofthermally stable enzymes as well as a better understanding of how tocharacterise their activity and performance with respect to different fabrics,sizes and processing conditions. Scouring and bleaching are attractive targetsfor enzyme-based processes. Several commercial enzyme products exist in themarket for this purpose.
About the Author:
Dr SubrataDas obtained his PhDin Textile Technology from IIT, Delhi. He has around two decades of workingexperience in R&D, quality assurance and teaching. He
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