Conservation of cellulase enzyme in biopolishing application of cotton fabrics

Abstract

Abstract Immobilization of commercial cellulase enzyme on ion exchange and epoxy resin carriers has been studied under various process parameters and conditions by using methanol to allow reuse of cellulase enzyme that would otherwise be discarded after biopolishing. The activity of immobilized enzyme was determined by measuring the amount of glucose made from carboxy methyl cellulose by using an assay with reading at 492 nm. The retained activity was investigated by cellulase assay for every successive cycle of operations. Under different process parameters and conditions the activity of immobilization has been tried to increase the immobilization efficiency. Epoxy resin shows greater amount of cellulase immobilization when compared to ion exchange resin. The immobilized epoxy resin with maximum activity was used on cotton fabric for biopolishing instead of free enzyme for successive cycles and the treated fabrics physico-mechanical properties were studied. Results show that immobilized cellulase can be used for biopolishing for successive cycles efficiently. Key words: Biopolishingcellulaseimmobilizationoptical density-OD ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Dr. Mukesh Doble, Department of Bio-technology, Indian Institute of Technology (IITM), Chennai, is thanked for expert technical assistance. The financial support of the Council of Science and Industrial Research (CSIR) is gratefully acknowledged.