Role of mechanical action in low-temperature cotton scouring with F. solani pisi cutinase and pectate lyase

The two principal reasons that can hinder industrial success of bioscouring are the inability to remove cotton waxes at low-temperature and that bioscouring is a slow diffusion controlled process. The main objective of this paper is to develop an improved cotton scouring process by applying mechanical action and enzyme treatment to efficiently remove the cuticle and primary wall compounds from the cotton fibre. The role of the mechanical action for improving the bioscouring process is discussed. To study the effect, a known amount of mechanical energy was applied using the 'wedge apparatus' before and after the enzyme treatment. The effect of mechanical action was evaluated for a faster scouring process with cutinase, pectinase and optimum incubation conditions such as pH, temperature, ionic strength, enzyme concentration, and incubation time were determined. It is demonstrated that cutinase from fungus Fusarium solani pisi is effective in the degradation of cotton waxes at low-temperature in less than 30 min after applying mechanical action. Wax removal with cutinase reduces pectinase incubation time and increases hydrolytic rate of pectinase. By the introduction of mechanical energy a fast one-step low-temperature enzymatic cotton scouring process is developed at lab scale. (c) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.