Following in the footsteps of pharmacy and food processing the textile industry makes recourse to enzymes on an increasing scale. Biotechnology makes the textile processes more ecological. In the 1990's, attempts were made in Poland to lessen the undesirable effect of carbonization by using enzymes to remove vegetable impurities from wool. Pre-treatment of wool with an enzyme bath in the carbonizing process helped reduce the concentration of sulphuric acid from 6% to 1.5%. The developed technology of cleaning wool from vegetable impurities is conventionally described as the 'BIOCARBO of Wool'.
This paper presents the results of laboratory and technological trails of using enzymatic treatments for remove vegetable impurities from wool. Enzymes, which are complex proteins, are specifically active only in relation to certain substances. This is an advantage as far as grease wool is concerned, since wool and its vegetable impurities have different chemical structures. In addition, the properties of uncleaned wool and of wool cleaned by the biological method are discussed.
