The aim of this applied research is to design a sustainable industrial scale enzyme based flax retting process. A systematic approach has been adopted. The screening and selection of enzymes for flax retting has been carried out. Alkaline pectinase has been identified as the most appropriate enzyme for the flax retting purpose. Optimisation of process parameters has been carried out using alkaline pectinase, non-ionic surfactants and chelating agents in terms of concentration of enzyme and other auxiliaries, time, temperature, liquid to solid ratio etc. Scale up experiments were performed. The BOD, COD and NKjeldahl of the process waste water have been evaluated. At the end, an eeconomical evaluation of the successful flax retting process has been performed.
 
Paper for the 14th Autex World Textile Conference, May 26th-28th 2014, Bursa, Turkey.