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Received: 2 December 2014
Received in revised form: 9 January 2015
Accepted: 11 January 2015
Keywords
Citrus
DE value
Grape fruit
Viscosity
Yield
Abstract
Pectin is a component of the plant cell and can be found in the primary cell wall and the middle lamella of plant tissues. Currently, pectin is a very important raw material, especially in the food and the pharmaceutical industries. There are several ways to extract pectin from different materials and solvents. One way to synthesize pectin is from the extraction of pomelo peel and this research specifically studies the extraction using tartaric acid as the solvent and under microwave assistance. Some properties of the synthesized pectin were tested such as DE and viscosity. The pH value, the rate of pomelo peels/solvent (w/v), the level of irradiation power and the irradiation time affected the productivity of pectin. The results showed that at pH value of 1.5, rate of pomelo peel/solvent was 1/40 and the irradiation time during 9 minutes at 660W of microwave power. The yield of pectin obtained 23.83%, pure pectin was 80.88% and it was rated as a high methoxyl pectin (HMP) (DE = 92.75%) with a low viscosity. The study proved that the use of tartaric acid solvent and microwave increased the quality and yield of synthesized pectin; moreover, this method was also time and energy saving.
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Introduction
Among other polysaccharides that are extracted from plant materials, pectin is an extremely complex polysaccharide and is widely used as a functional ingredient in food and pharmaceutical industries. In food technology, it is used as a thickening and gelling agent (May, 1990). Its medical uses are anti-diarrhea, detoxification and blood glucose reducer (Voragen et al., 1995). The worldwide annual consumption of pectin is approximately 45 000 tones every year, occupying the global market value of at least 400 million Euros (Savary et al., 2003). Pectin consists of D-galacturonic acid units and is classified into two groups: high methoxyl pectin (HMP) and low methoxyl pectin (LMP) that depend on the degree of esterification (DE). There are many sources of pectin in nature such as pomelo peel, apple pomace, citrus peel, sugar beets, dragon fruit peel, etc... Apart from the...