STUDY ON OPTIMIZATION OF PECTIN EXTRACTION FROM UNRIPE BANANA PEEL (Musa sp.)

Abstract

Pectin is a valuable polysaccharide widely used in the pharmaceutical and food industries. Pectin is usually obtained from a variety of plant sources. The quality and sell price of pectin depends on many different extraction factors including temperature, extraction time, solvent ratio, concentration, banana ripeness, grain size, and extraction method. This study was performed to optimize factors affecting pectin yield from unripe banana peels by response surface methodology according to the Box-Behnken model. The results reveal that at the extraction conditions: solvent: material ratio of 29.85% (v/w), temperature of 90.67 °C, and alcohol: solvent ratio of 1.2% (v/v) ), pectin extraction efficiency reached the highest value with 49.67%. At this condition, the tested values agree with the values predicted by the optimal models. Extracted pectin product contains specific functional groups similar to those of commercial pectin; pectin content reached 65.01%; DE index reached 37.37% and MI index reached 9.45 ± 0.45%.