Biorefinery of passion fruit Rinds (Passiflora edulis sp.): extraction of pectin

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that fruit by-products from the agroindustry is important source of pectin, widely used in the food and pharmaceutical industries. Obtaining pectin using emerging extraction technologies is an attractive alternative because these are clean methods that use non-toxic solvents and can produce high-quality products in short extraction time. In this context, the biorefinery concept will be applied to recover pectin from the by-product of the processing of yellow passion fruit (Passiflora edulis), specifically the passion fruit rinds. The biorefinery proposal include the extraction of pectin through Subcritical Water Extraction (SWE). The conventional pectin extraction method will be compared with SWE. Passion fruit rinds (PFR) and the biomass obtained from the extraction of phenolic compounds with Ultrasound- Assisted Pressurized Liquid Extraction (PFR - UAPLE) will be characterized in terms of moisture, total lipid, protein, ash, soluble dietary fiber, insoluble dietary fiber, total dietary fiber, total carbohydrate, reducing sugar, mean particle diameter, real density, apparent density and porosity. Pectins extracted from PFR and PFR - UAPLE will be characterized in terms of pectin yield, pH, apparent viscosity, molecular weight, galacturonic acid, neutral sugars, degree of methyl esterification and morphological analysis. The project will be carried out at the Foodomics Laboratory (CSIC), at the Institute of Food Science Research (CIAL), at the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain), under the supervision of Dr. Elena Ibañez. The proposed work plan is divided into six tasks spanning 7 months. (AU)