Quality Improvement of Wool Fabric Using Protease Enzyme

Abstract

Wool is a fiber from the fleece of domesticated sheep. The scaly structure of wool is responsible, to a great extent, for the tendency of wool to felt and shrink. Chlorination is a commonly used process to modify the scales of wool fibers with the purpose of providing resistance to felting and shrinkage but this process shows a number of drawbacks which forced to search for an ecologically clean alternative. There have been many attempts to replace this chlorine process by an environmental friendly process that would similarly degrade the scales. Enzyme processing is one of them that has come to forefront in the textile processing units and made processing more eco-friendly. In the present study an attempt was made to treat the wollen fabric with different concentrations (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5g/l) of Protease enzyme and observed the effects on physical properties including hand of the fabric, weight loss, Scanning Electron Microscope (SCM) test, absorbency, pilling, tensile strength, and fabric drape, dyeability as well as colour fastness properties of woolen fabrics. The control, scoured and enzyme treated samples were also tested and compared. All the samples were dyed with acid dye to check the effect of enzymatic degumming on dye ability of wool fabric. The dyed fabrics were subjected to testing for various colorfastness properties including light, washing, crocking and perspiration. Untreated wool fiber showed fair handle, no absorbency (60 seconds), rough and sharp scales on the surface of fiber, however enzyme treatment with different concentrations wool fabric showed improvement in softness, slight weight loss (6.31%), smoother surface scales, improved absorbency (minimum 45 seconds) and drapability. Treatment with protease enzyme brought improvement in the physical and colorfastness properties of wool fabric. Among all the concentrations of protease enzyme, 4 g/l concentration was found to be best.