Part I: Enzymatic treatment of Bamboo, Bamboo/Cotton knitted fabric using brewer’s yeast suspension

Abstract

In this paper, the optimization of the bio-treatment of bamboo and bamboo/cotton knitted fabrics using brewer’s yeast suspension has been accomplished. After enzymatic treatment, the dyeing operation by using Brazilwood natural type was applied. This comprehensive paper is focused on studying the factors that could influence the bio-treatment like concentration of enzyme, pH value of the bio-treatment bath, temperature and duration of treatment to set the best conditions of the treatment process. The influence of changing these factors on fabric colour strength and wettability was investigated. Scanning Electronic Microscope (SEM) analysis was performed for bamboo and bamboo/cotton samples after pre-treatment and enzymatic hydrolysis of bamboo, in order to have a better understanding of the morphology. This microscopic inspection was carried out to inspect the surface features of the fabrics. Results have shown that the growing in colour strength caused by the bio-treatment with enzymes is referred to the enzyme extract which includes primarily lipase, amylase and protease enzymes that develop the fabric dyeability. Furthermore, the wettability was improved by applying enzymatic treatment, where the diffusion rate of the natural dye is increased for the bamboo and bamboo/cotton fabrics.