The combined use of cutinase, keratinase and protease treatments for wool bio-antifelting

摘要

A combined treatment method of cutinase, keratinase, and protease was applied in the wool processing to modify the wool properties. The results demonstrated that individual protease treatment did not obviously improve the wettability and anti-felting property of wool fabrics. The combined process of cutinase and protease seemed more efficient than the keratinase-protease method, the obtained wettability and anti-felting ability of wool fabric were more encouraging. The combined use of cutinase, keratinase, and protease treatments endowed wool with more satisfactory properties compared to other methods. The contact angle of the protease-treated wool fabric reduced to 66 ° and the area shrinkage decreased to 5.2 % with an acceptable strength loss of 14 %. Reaction mechanism of the three-step enzymatic process was proposed in this paper. The data from amino acid analysis revealed the cooperative actions of cutinase, keratinase, and protease treatments during the combined enzymatic processing.