Study on the Interaction Between Cellulase and Surfactants

Abstract

The conformations of secondary and tertiary structures of cellulase in the presence of eleven commonly used surfactants were determined by Raman spectroscopy and the results were discussed. The results indicated that anionic surfactants had a stronger influence on the cellulase conformations than nonionic surfactants. Thus anionic surfactants showed a stronger inactivation on the cellulase activity. Furthermore, Zeta potential distributions of cellulase in solutions of surfactants were tested by Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS). The DLS results indicated that the interaction between anionic surfactants and cellulase was attributed to electrostatic attraction. By adding cellulase to a liquid, non-cellulase-containing detergent, the detergency of the liquid detergent could be increased. Further studies on the sample swatches by optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were undertaken in this paper.