Aplicação de enzimas na indústria têxtil

Abstract

The enzymes are generally characterized as proteins, which have the function of catalyzing reactions. For this reason, they are very effective because they have a high specificity on the substrate, acting to decompose or compose only certain substances under determined conditions of temperature, pH and substrate concentration. Enzymes can be applied in several areas such as in the detergent production, food industry, pharmaceutical industry, alcohol production and others. They can also be used in the textile process, as an alternative to change the properties of textile fibers in the process steps like phase of desizing, scoring, purg, bleaching, dyeing and others. They are being more used day after day, because it's show many advantages as a contribution to the ecological improvement of the process, since it replaces the chemicals products normally used, therefore, acts in the reduction of environmental impacts and in decrease the damages caused in the fibers. In this context, this final paper carries out a bibliographic review study on the performance of enzymes like amylase, pectinase, cellulase and catalase used in the different stages of the textile process.