Valorization of orange peels as a source of pectins

VANINA A. GUNTERO; CRISTIAN A. FERRETTI

Santiago de Compostela

Conferencia; The 25th International Electronic Conference on Synthetic Organic Chemistry; 2021

MDPI

Pectin is a natural structural polymer that is extensively used in the food industry, medicinal and pharmaceutical fields. Considering their potential applications, in this work, microwave-assisted and conventional extraction were evaluated to extract pectin from orange peel by acid hydrolysis using citric acid as an extractant. For conventional extraction, temperatures higher than 600C and long extraction times were necessary to obtained pectin yields of 9.0%. Under convention conditions of extraction, the degree of esterification of pectin was 55.0%. The extraction procedure assisted by microwave was optimized using an experimental design of 3 factors and 2 levels, analyzing the effect of operational variables' influence in the pectin yield. The optimization of pectin extraction condition showed that temperature of 550C, extraction time of 6 min, and solid/liquid ratio of 0.02 mg/mL, are necessary to obtained pectin yields of 25.0%. Under the optimal extraction condition, the degree of esterification of pectin was about 75%. According to the ANOVA analysis, time was the factor that more influence had on yields of pectin. These results showed that microwave-assisted procedure allows obtaining pectin with suitable properties from orange peel over mild operation conditions.