Extraction and characterization of pectin derived from underutilized papaya seeds as a value-added product

Abstract

Food processing industries generate a massive amount of biowastes, which causes major environmental issues. High-level marketable bioproducts can be extracted from these biowastes as value-added products. One such value-added product is pectin. Papaya fruit is one of the tropical fruits that is utilized the most to produce a greater number of processed foods in the food processing industries. Papaya seeds are one of the underutilized parts of papaya and have potential commercial value-added products. The present study aims to extract pectin from papaya seed waste using the hot water extraction technique. Furthermore, one factor at a time (OFAT) was used to find the optimum process conditions for the high extraction of pectin. The parameters considered were liquid–solid ratio (5-50 ml/g), sample weight (5-25 g), extraction time (15-90 min), temperature (50-100°C) and pH (1-3). A high yield of pectin (8.655%) was obtained at a liquid–solid ratio of 25 mL/g, sample weight of 20 g, extraction time of 60 min at 80°C, pH of 1.5 and precipitation with ethanol. Proximate analysis was performed for the papaya seeds that had moisture (82.10%), ash (1.76%), protein (1.52%), fat (1.42%) and carbohydrate (13.20%), and the pectin extracted from papaya seeds were found to have moisture (7.8%), ash (7.6%), protein (2.2%), fat (2.1%) and carbohydrate (80.3%). Pectin was characterized with gas chromatography for its methoxy content, which was found to be 9.216%. The current investigation found that pectin obtained from papaya seeds had low methoxy pectin, which has commercial applications in the jam and jelly industries.