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The textile sector struggles with cotton stickiness from honeydew contamination. It hurts agriculture and marketability. This study aims to examine how bacterial enzymes could reduce honeydew-contaminated cotton adherence in textile businesses sustainably.

Enzyme was extracted from bacteria isolated from the fermented bamboo shoots “Lung siej”. The enzyme was tested for α-glucosidase using p-nitrophenyl-α-D-glucopyranoside as a substrate. Design of experiments determined enzyme activity temperature and reaction time. Laboratory-prepared artificial honeydew was added to ginning mill cotton to show honeydew contamination. After enzyme treatment, sticky cotton was tested for microscopic examination, ultraviolet (UV), Benedict’s, Elsner colorimetric, high volume instrument (HVI) and viscosity tests.

The bacterial isolate is characterized as Lysinibacillus sp. as confirmed by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The enzyme extracted was identified as α-glucosidase. The ideal temperature and reaction time for enzymatic activity were 32 °C and 35 min, respectively, using central composite design. The microscopic examination, UV test, Benedict’s test, Elsner colorimetric test, HVI test and viscosity test showed that bacterial enzyme treatment reduced cotton fiber adherence.

Although few patents have examined the effect of yeast enzymes, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, a bacterial enzyme is investigated for the first time to reduce the adhesion of honeydew-contaminated cotton.

Bales of cotton run through the gins and textile mill instruments, stick to them and make it cumbersome for the ginning mill workers. This is so because more time and money have to be invested in cleaning these instruments. The stickiness of cotton causes health hazards to the workers, decreases the yarn quality and economic loss to the textile industry. The effect of cotton stickiness on textile ginning, various methods for cotton stickiness detection and the steps for reduction are discussed.

The different methods that are available for detecting and measuring cotton stickiness are described. The sugars that cause stickiness are either of plant origin (physiological sugars) or from the feeding insects (entomological origin). The methods for stickiness detection and reduction are discussed under physical, chemical and biological categories.

This review suggests possible ways to mitigate cotton stickiness.

One of the major issues of the textile industry is honeydew-contaminated cotton stickiness. However, there are few papers on detection methods for analyzing honeydew cotton stickiness along with the approaches to reduce stickiness. This paper summarizes different methods along with a study for detection as well as reduction of cotton stickiness.