Comparative study on enhanced pectinase and alkali-oxygen degummings of sisal fibers

This paper reports an improved traditional fiber degumming method, where sisal fibers were treated by alkali oxygen and pectinase, respectively, after the solute alkali pretreatment. To explore the influence of various factors on its degumming, efficiency of degumming through single factor and orthogonal experiments was aasessed. The results showed that pectinase/alkali-oxygen method after the first alkali treatment had a good effect on the degumming of sisal fiber, and most of the non-cellulose components such as hemicellulose, lignin and pectin had been removed. After pectinase treatment, the cellulose content and crystallinity were 71.87% and 66.29%, respectively. After alkaline oxygen treatment, the cellulose content was 77.16%, and the crystallinity was 69.09%. In terms of degumming rate, alkali oxygen treatment worked better than pectinase treatment, the degumming rate of pectinase method was about 10%, while that of alkali-oxygen method was more than 20%. In other hand, the pectinase method was much milder and had less damage to fibers. It would provide some references for the future application and development of sisal fiber.