Modification of wool by air plasma and enzymes as a cleaner and environmentally friendly process

A big disadvantage of the traditional anti-felting modification of wool is the problem of environmental pollution. Low temperature plasma (LTP) and enzyme process are the two important cleaner technologies which have potential use in the textile industry. In this paper, transglutaminase, a protein crosslinking enzyme, combined with air low temperature plasma and protease was used to modify wool fiber. The influences of the combination treatment on wool knitgoods performances were discussed. It was shown that air low temperature plasma pretreatment, instead of conventional chemical pretreatment, improved wettability significantly and made enzyme molecule more accessible to protein chains of the wool. Protease treatment following air plasma impacted a significant reduction in fabric shrinkage and the loss of strength was under control. Transglutaminase remediated wool damage, resulting in an increase in bursting strength. The machine washable wool knitgoods are obtained and the damage to the wool fiber can be controlled by using the combination treatment of air plasma, protease and transglutaminase. TGase was demonstrated to catalyze cross-linking reaction in wool protein by analyzing the thermal behavior of wool.