Effect of enzymatic treatment on wool fabric

Abstract

Wool has been a precious raw material for people for a long time. Today we are able to select between a huge variety of fibres with varying properties, but the continuing use of wool – in spite of the competition with other  natural fibres and new synthetic fibres can be attributed to the unique properties of wool such as good  thermal regulation,  high moisture absorption, low creasing tendency, low flammability and high wearing comfort. However a big disadvantage, which emerges during washing, is the felting tendency. Felting is an undesirable feature of woolen clothes which occurs as a result of the directionally dependent frictional coefficient of the wool fibers. To reduce felting, this directional dependency must be reduced. Nowadays, this is done by treating the wool in a chlorine-containing solution and due to its various advantages; the chlorination is the most frequently used process in the industry today. This process, though effective, results in the production of polluted wastewaters containing large quantities of chloro-organic compounds. Therefore, this procedure has to be replaced and develop clean technologies such as enzymatic finishing processes. Enzymes are natural protein molecules that act as highly efficient catalysts in biochemical reactions. Enzymes not only work efficiently and rapidly, but they are also biodegradable. The present study was undertaken to find the effect of Protease enzyme treatment on wool fabric and the effect of enzymatic degumming on dye ability of wool fabric. The control, scoured and enzyme treated samples were tested for various physical and colorfastness properties. Untreated wool fiber showed fair handle, no absorbency, rough and sharp scales on the surface of fiber, but after enzyme treatment wool fabric showed improvement in all the physical and colorfastness properties. With the single-step enzymatic treatment process, the scales of  the wool were  partially degraded and resulted in  smoother surface structure which will facilitate the sliding of wool fibres in both directions and decrease felting tendency that way.