Cellulase In The Textile Industry

Cellulases are used in the textile industry, in detergents, pulp and paper industry, improving digestibility of animal feeds, in food industry, and these enzymes account for a significant share of the world enzyme market (Sukumaran, et al., 2005). Some of the applications are shown in Table 4. Cellulases were initially investigated for the bioconversion of biomass which gave way to research in the industrial applications of the enzymes in animal feed, food, textiles and detergents and in the paper industry (Sukumaran, et al., 2005). Nowadays with the shortage of fossil fuels and the arising need to find alternative source for renewable energy and fuels, there is a renewal of interest in the bioconversion of biomass using cellulases and other

Most of the cellulases studied showed similar optimum pH value, solubility and amino acid composition whereas thermal stability and exact substrate specificity may be different. It is also important to understand that cellulase preparations generally contain other enzymatic activities besides cellulolytic activity, and these may also affect the properties of the preparations. Research article by Mukesh et al. investigated the effect of incubation time, temperature, pH, carbon sources, nitrogen sources and natural substrates on cellulase production by bacteria isolated from cow dung.

From the research article by Mukesh et al. the result showed that there is a gradual increase in production from 12th hour and the maximum production was occurred at 72 hours. However, the incubation time is also affected by the nutrients present in the medium and the conditions of the culture. A higher cellulase activity was found at 30 °C (Mukesh et al 2012). A work done by Abdelnasser and Ahmed showed that 75 °C was found to be the optimum temperature for Bacillus sp. This showed that the temperature requirement of the organism is based on the nature of

In addition, cheaper substrates and inducers for cellulase production need to be identified. Another major challenge in cellulase production is the feedback inhibition of cellulase biosynthesis by the end products, glucose and cellobiose. Expensive process control schemes are required in order to provide slow substrate addition and monitoring of glucose concentration (Sukumaran, et al., 2005). This is because at low concentrations of cellulose, low glucose production may not be able to satisfy the active metabolism of cell growth. On the other hand, at high concentration of cellulose, glucose generation is faster than consumption and this can stop the cellulase synthesis by glucose