Abstract
Scouring of raw wool is a chemical treatment that needs a high amount of detergents, alkalis and water. Effluents produced by this treatment are extremely polluted with chemicals and impurities washed out from the fibers. It is well known that the ultrasound washing can remove effectively different substances from the textile surfaces even without surfactants due to the cavitations occurring at certain parameters of the ultrasound field. On the other side water treatments of wool combined with mechanical agitation provoked felting which can impair the quality of wool materials. Felting itself depends not only on the parameters of water treatments but also on the structure of wool cuticle. Partial hydrolysis of the cuticle with some proteases can decrease considerably the wool felting. The aim of this work is to study the possibility of applying the ultrasound at the process of raw wool scouring and the influence of proteases on the felting properties of wool at these conditions. It has been found out that ultrasound environment applied does not impair the specific activity of enzyme auxiliaries used and leads to increasing of their effect on the surface of wool fibers. Thus the scouring process studied could be used for developing of a technology producing lower amount and less polluted effluents.
Highlights
The tendency of wool to felt and shrink is mainly due to its scaly structure
Data obtained from our experiments showed a significant decrease of shrinkage ofwool fibers treated with enzymes compared to the fibers treated only with a buffer solution Figure 4
Ultrasound applied together with proteases increases the enzyme activity up to 10%. This effect can be applied in combined enzymatic-ultrasound scouring of raw wool fibers
Summary
The tendency of wool to felt and shrink is mainly due to its scaly structure. Wool shrinkage occurs when the fibers are subjected to mechanical treatments combined with higher temperatures and use of different detergents. On the other side there are many data that ultrasound (US) could destroy and remove the pollutants on textile surfaces even without any additional auxiliaries in the washing bath [2] Logically it can be expected that US will increase wool fiber felting occurring at the conditions of scouring. There is no available data if US scouring of raw wool fibers is effective to the classical detergent washing and if it can cause higher wool felting and shrinkage. It is of a practical interest if the application of protease auxiliaries originally formulated for use as detergent additives can influence the process of US wool scouring
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