Influence of enzymatic treatment on the structural, sorption and dyeing properties of viscose and chitosan/cellulose fibers

Abstract

The research focused on the structural, sorption and dyeing properties of enzymatically treated viscose fibers and chitosan/cellulose fibers compared to the untreated fibers. First, both fibers were treated with cellulase enzymes for 30 minutes and 90 minutes and afterwards were dyed with the commercial sample of CI Reactive Red 238 at three different dye concentrations. Comparison of the structural and sorption properties of untreated and enzymatically treated fibers showed that the enzymatic treatment lowered the degree of polymerization, as well as crystallinity degree and influenced the surface structure of fibers, resulting in enhanced sorption properties and dyeability of enzymatically treated fibers. Although the values of exhaustion and fixation were higher for chitosan/cellulose fibers because of their initial less-ordered crystalline structure, the 90 minutes of enzymatic treatment has increased the moisture content and water retention capability more for the viscose fibers and hence their dyeability compared to chitosan/cellulose fibers. The 90-minute enzymatically pretreated viscose fibers reached the same exhaustion and fixation values at lower dye concentrations as chitosan/cellulose fibers.