Cellulase finishing of woven, cotton fabrics in jet and winch machines

Some authors have reported that as the applied agitation rate increases, the apparent activity of the endoglucanases from Trichoderma reesei towards cotton cellulose increases more markedly than does the apparent activity of the cellobiohydrolases. This suggests that the quality of cellulase finishing effects on cellulosic textiles may be machine-type dependent. The present work using total crude, endoglucanase-rich and cellobiohydrolase-rich cellulases from T. reesei confirmed that the final properties of woven, cotton fabrics treated under realistic processing conditions in a jet machine, were measurably and perceivably different from those of the same fabrics, treated using the same processing conditions of temperature, time, pH, enzyme concentration and fabric to liquor ratio, but in a winch machine. The results are interpreted in terms of the effects of agitation rate on the adsorption-desorption behaviour of the T. reesei endoglucanases and cellobiohydrolases. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.