Bio-scouring of jute fiber for enhancing compatibility in reactive dyeing

Bio-scouring of jute fibers is one of the new green pretreatments for textile coloration. In this context, the present study deployed the pectinase enzyme for scouring jute fiber and compared it with the conventional alkaline scouring process. The bio-scouring process was carried out with 30, 50, and 100 g/L pectinase enzyme at 55 ℃ for 3, 6, and 9 h, keeping the bath acidic condition (pH 5.5). The conventional alkaline scouring was performed with 3 g/L caustic soda at 100 ℃ for the same time variations. The samples were characterized by measuring weight loss, water absorbency, and dye uptake using standard methods. It was revealed that enzymatic scouring was highly effective in removing the natural oils and waxes from the fiber surface. The weight loss of the enzyme-scoured samples was 2.17%, and the water absorbency was 7.33 s. On the contrary, the traditional scouring denoted a weight loss of 3.57%, and the water absorbency was 6 s. The dyeability of both samples was measured by dyeing with Remazol Red RR of shade 0.1%. It was found that the enzyme-scoured samples showed the same dye uptake (K/S) as the conventionally scoured samples. After analysis of weight loss, absorbance, and dye uptake of both bio-scoured and traditional scoured jute fiber, it was observed that bio-scouring benefits more than conventional alkaline scouring in reactive coloration.