Cellulase Activities and Finishing Effects on Cotton Fabrics

The relationships between cellulase activities and theproperties of treated labrics including weight loss,breaking strength,surface thickness and bending rigiditywere investigated.Three cellulases were used to treattwo kinds of cotton fabrics and the results were com-pared to their activities measured towards filter paper,CMC and dewaxed cotton.The results suggested thatamong the three activities,exo activity(measured to-wards dewaxed cotton)be mostly inclined to reflect theactual hydrolytic capability of the cellulase on cotton fab-rics,while endo activity(measured towards CMC)wasof little use in predicting cellulase efflciency in terms ofweight loss.The investigation also suggested that the rel-atively endo-rich cellulase(Cellusoft Plus)was inclinedto give biopolishing effects by cleaning the surface fibrilof fabrics while the exo-rich cellulase(Cellusoft L,alsoknown as total or full cellulase)tended to deliver soften-ing cffects by decreasing the bending and shearing prop-erties.