Use of ultrasonic energy for intensification of the bio-preparation of greige cotton.

Raw unscoured cotton contains approximately 90% cellulose and various noncellulosic impurities such as waxes, pectins, proteins, and fats. To remove these hydrophobic noncellulosics and produce a highly absorbent fiber that can be dyed and finished uniformly, the greige cotton is traditionally processed with relatively harsh and environmentally unfriendly chemicals. New bio-preparation processes that utilize highly specific enzymes instead of conventional organic/inorganic chemicals are becoming increasingly popular in the textile industry. The major shortcoming of this new technology is that the processing time is much longer than the conventional method. This limitation was overcome by use of ultrasound energy in combination with enzyme processing. The combined enzyme/ultrasound bio-preparation of greige cotton offers significant advantages such as less consumption of expensive enzymes, shorter processing time, better uniformity of treatment and a notable decrease in the amount and toxicity of the resulting textile wastewater effluents.