Effect of Lipase Treatment on Physical and Dyeing Properties of Cellulose Acetate Fabric

Objective: Cellulose acetate fabric was bio-treated by lipase enzyme. Afterwards, untreated and bio-treated fabrics were dyed with direct and disperse dyes to study the treatment effect. Methods: Bending length, fabric thickness, tensile strength and dyeing properties of the biotreated fabrics were studied. Change in the morphology of fibers was observed by SEM after enzymatic deacetylation. Results: Enzymatic deacetylation of cellulose acetate fibers led to an improvement in hydrophilicity. The whiteness index of cellulose acetate fabric slightly decreased from 95.81 to 95.79 after bio-pretreatment. Lipase pre-treatment also caused an increase in fiber diameter of up to 54.80%. Bending length decreased from 1.95 to 1.80 cm after enzymatic treatment while the number of threads per centimeter and fabric thickness increased. Bio-treated fabric showed lower tensile strength in comparison to untreated fabric. Conclusion: The lipase pretreatment increased the color strength by 19.04% and 18.50% for direct and disperse dyes respectively.