Pectin - Extraction, Purification, Characterization and Applications

Abstract

Fruits, vegetables, and other plant-based foods are particularly important as they are source of dietary carbohydrates, and therefore much of the energy in the adult diet. Plant food also contains a wide range of dietary components rich in bioactive phytochemicals and is essential to the human body that may provide desirable health benefits beyond basic nutrition. Pectin is one of the nonstarch polysaccharides (NSPs), which constitutes the major fraction of the plant cell wall in association and/or substituted with other polysaccharides, and they cover a great variety of biological functions and chemical structures. Generally, pectin is isolated from by-products of agro-foods using extraction technologies with the emergence of novel and effective techniques that inclined toward a cleaner process. Pectin is widely used both in food sector (as gelling, thickening, and stabilizer agent) and in pharmaceutical industries (bioactive components) including biomedical application (drug delivery, tissue engineering, and wound healing) as innovative applications.