The project report includes Present Market Position and Expected Future Demand, Market Size, Statistics, Trends, SWOT Analysis and Forecasts. Report provides a comprehensive analysis from industry covering detailed reporting and evaluates the position of the industry by providing insights to the SWOT analysis of the industry.
Enzymes are widely used in the textile industry owing to their eco friendliness and suitability of application on different substrates under varying application conditions. The enzymes are now considered to be an integral part of almost every wet processing step of natural fibres, ranging from fabric preparation to the garment finishing. Enzymes are part of “White Biotechnology”, which is aimed at practicing environment-friendly applications and using renewable resources.
The global market potential of enzymes for textile application is estimated to be about US$150 million having CAGR of about 3%. The growth rate is envisaged to increase further depending on the changing fashions in “garment finishing” and the growing awareness of eco concerns demanding “Greener” processing. During the last decade many new applications have been developed and commercialised, which has also expanded the market size considerably.
The major usage of enzymes in textile processing is in the areas of:
• Desizing – of cotton woven fabrics, terry towels and denims.
• Bioscouring – of cotton yarn & knits.
• Biocleaning – degumming of silk, flax retting, decolourisation of dye house waste water.
• Biobleaching – of Wool.
• Bleach clean-up – post bleaching peroxide neutralisation.
• Biopolishing – loose fibre, surface fuzz removal from knits/towels for anti-pilling.
• Biosoftening – soft finish on knits & garment, fading of denims.
Enzyme is a naturally occurring biological product produced by all living organism. It is composed of a complex 3 dimensional globular protein, comprising about 200 to 250 amino-acids having molecular weight as high as 104-105 and which are capable of catalysing specific chemical reactions. Many enzymes also contain a non-protein component called “cofactor” for improved catalytic activity. Being catalysts of all reactions in the living system, the enzymes are also called as ‘bio-catalysts’. However, the enzyme catalysts differ from chemical catalysts in following important ways:
• Enzyme-catalysed reactions are much faster than chemically-catalysed reactions. Enzymes can enhance the reaction rates by 106 to 1013 times.
• Enzymes have greater reaction specificity and rarely form any by-products.
• Enzymes work under comparatively mild reaction conditions, such as temperatures below 100oC, atmospheric pressure and pH neither too acidic nor strongly alkaline.
• Very small amounts of enzymes are required to carry out chemical reactions and both solid and liquid enzyme preparations take up very little storage space.
• Mild operating conditions enable simple and widely available equipment to be used and enzyme reactions are easily controlled and can be easily stopped as and when the desired degree of effect is achieved.
• Enzymes use significantly less water, energy, time for effective specific action, help control overall sustainability and reduce impact on carbon footprint.
The commercially available enzymes are manufactured from the micro-organisms by fermentation. Further purification steps involve precipitation, extraction, centrifugation and filtration to obtain the enzyme concentrate along with varying extent of by-products depending on the conditions of fermentation and purification. Subsequently, some additives like stabilisers, activators, preservatives, pH regulators etc. are incorporated to develop final formulated product for intended commercial end use application.
