The influences of enzymatic processing on physico-chemical and pigment dyeing characteristics of cotton fabrics

First, a crude cellulase was used to treat cotton fabrics to investigate its influences on the physicochemical properties of cotton. The FTIR and XRD analyses both confirmed the enzymatic treatment could increase the crystallinity of cotton, especially at a higher cellulase dosage. Once treated, the number of dissociable groups (–COOH) in cotton decreased, while that of the reducing groups (–CHO) increased. Second, copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) was selected to prepare an anionic nanoscale pigment dispersion to detect its dyeability on different cotton samples. It was concluded that the enzymatic hydrolysis itself had no significant impacts on the pigment dyeing performance. However, cellulase protein still stayed on the cotton surface after treatment and produced an enhancement effect on the pigment uptake due to strong hydrophobic interactions between them. This could be verified by K/S measurement and SEM observations.