A sustainable and green process for scouring of cotton fabrics using xylano-pectinolytic synergism: switching from noxious chemicals to eco-friendly catalysts.

Abstract

The objective of this research was to develop an appropriate, eco-friendly, cost-effective bioscouring methodology for removing natural impurities from cotton fabric. Maximum bioscouring was achieved using 5.0IU xylanase and 4.0IU pectinase with material to liquid ratio of 1:15 in a 50mM buffer (glycine-NaOH buffer, 1.0mM EDTA and 1% Tween-80, pH 8.5) with a treatment time of 60min at 50°C and an agitation speed of 60rpm. The bioscoured cotton fabrics showed a gain of 1.17% in whiteness, 3.23% in brightness and a reduction of 4.18% in yellowness in comparison to fabric scoured with an alkaline scouring method. Further, after bleaching, the whiteness, brightness and tensile strength of the bioscoured fabrics were increased by 2.18, 2.33 and 11.74% along with a decrease of 4.61% in yellowness of bioscoured plus bleached fabrics in comparison to chemically scoured plus bleached fabrics. From the results, it is clear that bioscouring is more efficient, energy saving and an eco-friendly process and has the potential to replace the environment-damaging scouring process with the xylano-pectinolytic bioscouring process.