The Influence of Bio-Innovative Pretreatment to Cotton Fabric Whiteness

Raw cotton fabric contains added and non-cellulosic impurities, including starch and pigments, which are responsible for its yellow color. To remove the impurities in the raw cotton fabric with maximum efficiency, save energy and minimize the environmental impact, bio-innovative pretreatment and oxi-dative percarbonate bleaching were performed. The fabrics were desized with the enzyme α-amilase and bio-scoured with an enzyme complex containing neutral pectinase, followed by bleaching with an unconventional bleaching agent, percarbonate, at 60 and 90 °C. Since the main purpose of the pretreatment is to prepare the fabric for further processing with as little damage as possible, mechanical damage and hydrophilicity were measured using standard methods. Subsequently, the cotton fabrics were optically brightened in a wide range of concentrations and the spectrophotometrically determined values for whiteness, yellowing and tinting of the fabric were analyzed. The obtained results confirmed that the bio-innovative pretreatment has good efficiency and percarbonate provides good whiteness and absorption to achieve excellent whiteness.