Microwave Assisted Green Extraction of Pectin from Citrus maxima Albedo and Flavedo, Process Optimization, Characterisation and Comparison with Commercial Pectin

The present study demonstrates that the albedo (AP) and flavedo (FP) portions of Citrus maxima, are often discarded as agricultural waste that has the potential to manufacture high-quality pectin. The efficacy of green microwave aided extraction (MAE) technology for pectin extraction yield from both the portions of citrus peels was examined using a response surface technique. However, further advancement has to be made in improving the functional parameters required for MAE. The optimal conditions for increased pectin yields for albedo (YAP %) and flavedo (YFP %) were found to be solid to solvent ratio (1:15), time (95 s) and power (450 watt). The predicted values of YAP (5.35%) and YFP (3.13) were in accordance with experimental values of YAP (5.57 %) and YFP (3.09 %) with small error % i.e., 3.90 % and 1.29 % for AP and FP respectively. The AP and FP extracted at optimum conditions were compared with commercial pectin (Cp) based on physicochemical properties, color, FT-IR, FE-SEM/EDX, XRD, and particle size analysis. Experimental result shows that AP and FP were classified as high methoxy pectin due to high DE values 72.76 % and 74.98 % respectively.