Fusion of Biotechnology and Craftsmanship: Bacterial Treatment to Improve Bashofu Fiber Extraction

Abstract

ABSTRACT Bashofu is a traditional Okinawan textile made from thin banana fibers. The raw materials derived from banana leaf sheaths are composed of plant fibers and unwanted constituents such as the plant cuticle layer. The unwanted constituents are hand-scraped by the traditional way that follows boiling the raw materials in a mild alkali solution. However, even after this mild degumming, the plant cuticle layer of current materials can still be too hard to be hand-scraped from the fibers. For smooth fiber separation, the unwanted constituents should be specifically degraded before hand-scraping. Fatty acid polyesters are the main components of plant cuticle layer and are not present in fibers. We attempted to specifically degrade the materials by Stenotrophomonas sp. with the ability to degrade Tween-20, as a result, the treated materials became softer and thinner with uniform thickness. Such changes in the morphology of the material allowed the plant cuticle layer to be easily separated from the banana fibers during hand-scraping, and the cross section of the extracted fibers was not affected by this bacterial treatment. This treatment would be used as a minimal improvement of the traditional Bashofu making in the future and would reduce the hard work for elderly artisans.