Cellulase Hydrolysis of Cotton Cellulose: The Effects of Mechanical Action, Enzyme Concentration and Dyed Substrates

Experiments with dyed and undyed cotton, using different cellulose concentration and with or with out mechanical action showed a high effect of those factors. The process with mechanical action have a higher weight-loss. Dyed cotton with vat and sulfur dyes have almost die same weight-loss than undyed cotton, but on reactive dyed cotton the cellulase hydrolysis is shorter. It was also verified a decrease of hydrolysis extent with an increase of the reactive dye concentration on the cotton substrate. Some synergism due to the enzyme concentration was apparently observed on the changes of the length of the leaving sugars.