Dr. Thidarat Nimchua, Researcher of Enzyme Technology Laboratory, has been awarded a Leaders in Innovation Fellowships (LIF) Program 2016 to develop a commercialization plan for her innovation, “ENZease: Dual-activity Enzyme for One-step Biodesizing and Bioscouring Process of Cotton Fabrics”. Dr. Thidarat had not only been trained on business modelling, customer development and presenting, but also had a chance in receiving guidance and mentorship from expert mentors and opportunities for international networking at the Royal Academy of Engineering and the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
ENZease is a duo-activity enzyme for one-step biodesizing and bioscouring process of cotton fabrics. It is contained of amylase and pectinase activities which are capable of working at the same pH and temperature range. ENZease was created to replace the conventional chemical process and combine the desizing and scouring steps of cotton fabrics. Using this duo-activity enzyme is able to lower chemical consumption, minimize step in the process, shorten treatment time, and also reduce operational cost and space. It was co-developed by Dr. Thidarat, MTEC and Thanapaisal R.O.P.
The Leaders in Innovation Fellowship (LIF) program is aimed to build capacity of researchers for entrepreneurship and commercialization of their research, especially, the ones who are about to develop, or are developing, a business proposition for their innovation. The program is a part of the UK Newton Fund, being run by the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) of the UK. In Thailand, the LIF program is delivered by the Thailand Research Fund (TRF) in collaboration with the NSTDA, as an international partnership of the UK Newton Fund.