Pretreatment of Bleached Cotton Fibers with Whole and Monocomponent Cellulases for Nonwoven Applications

Abstract

Enzymatic treatment of fabrics has been carried out in the past to enhance the aesthetic properties, which has often resulted in the reduction of fabric strength. The objective of the current investigation was to develop process recipes for the production of soft and strong nonwoven fabric from enzymatically treated cotton fibers. Two different enzymatic solutions, the whole cellulase and Cellulose Binding Domain (CBD)-free monocomponent endoglucanase, were selected for this purpose. The latter was used as potential enzyme solution that could reduce the fiber strength loss during hydrolysis. This paper discusses the changes in reducing power, protein adsorption, surface properties and single fiber tenacity of bleached cotton fibers and compares with those obtained with raw cotton treated at identical conditions. The results observed in this study showed that bleached cotton was less susceptible to damage and weakening than raw cotton fibers. Thus, the aggressive whole cellulase is more suitable for treatment of bleached cotton fibers, whereas CBDfree endoglucanase is sufficient for treatment of raw cotton fibers.