An Environmentally Benign Approach to Cotton Preparation: One-Bath Enzymatic Desizing, Scouring, and Activated Bleaching

As environmental awareness of textile wet processing's impact increases, attempts are being made to establish more environmentally benign textile processing. In this paper, a new combined process for desizing, bleaching, and scouring cotton in one bath is described using an innovative bleach activator, N[4-(triethylammoniomethyl)benzoyl]butyrolactam chloride (TBBC) and alpha-amylase enzyme. TBBC reacts with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to generate a peracid that is a more kinetically active oxidant than perhydroxy anion, leading to effective bleaching at 50 degrees C at near neutral pH. Data show that effective preparation, in terms of whiteness, and mote and size removal, was achieved. Also, while absorbency of the prepared fabric using the TBBC-based process was less than when conventional desizing, scouring, and bleaching was used, fabric strength was higher.