| dc.description.abstract | Cellulases are enzymes that hydrolyze β-1,
4 linkages in cellulose. Their applications in
industries such as paper, pulp, textile processing
and food are gradually increasing. Especially,
textile processing includes dye removal from
denim to give a faded look to the cotton fabric.
Replacement of conventional chemical dye
removal methods with microbial cellulases is
found economically as well as environmentally
feasible. The objective of this study was to
investigate the dye removal potential of crude
cellulase enzyme extracts obtained from soil
fungi. Cellulase production from each isolate
was carried out in defined medium described by
Mandels and Weber with incubation at 300 C for
7 days at 120 rpm shaking. The culture filtrate in
citrate buffer (pH = 4.8) was used as the crude
enzyme extract to perform filter paper assay and to
treat 5×5 cm denim swatch. The final absorbance
of the treated solution was measured at 600 nm by
UV-visible spectrophotometer. The isolates with
significantly higher total cellulase activities were
morphologically identified. The highest total
cellulase activity was observed in Trichoderma
as 0.583 FPU/ml, followed by Aspergillus and
Penicillium which showed total cellulase activities
above 0.1 FPU/ml. The highest final absorbance
was given as 0.937 by the enzyme extract from
the same Trichoderma isolate while most of the
other isolates gave an absorbance above 0.3. The
dye removal potential of each isolate was directly
proportional to their enzyme activities. The
isolates with higher cellulase activities have the
potential to be used in commercial level denim
dye removal. | en_US |
