Effect of Enzymatic Hydrolysis on Physical Properties of Wool Fabric

In the present work، the effect of treatment time and enzyme concentration in protease hydrolysis on the physical properties of wool fabric is studied. The hydrolysis effects on the treated samples are evaluated by measuring weight loss، tensile strength (along the warp)، area shrinkage، thickness and bending length as well as scanning electronic microscope (SEM) images. The results showed that despite the specific reduction in weight and tensile strength، the control of enzyme concentration at 3 % and treatment duration at 60 min as the optimum condition of enzyme application gives the desirable quality of thickness، shrinkage and bending length of the used fabric. In addition، the thickness of hydrolyzed fabric was decreased due to the removal of fuzz from the surface. The obtained results for the bending length illustrated that a soft handle is achieved on samples. Besides، the percentage of shrinkage was decreased by the removal of some parts of wool scales. However، at higher enzyme concentrations (above 3 %) the changes were leveled off.