EFFECT OF MICROWAVE POWER ON QUALITY PARAMETERS OF PECTIN EXTRACTED FROM MANGO PEEL

Abstract

The present study aims to use microwave pow-er to facilitate the extraction of pectin from dried mango peels, and also to explore the effect of power on some quality parameters of the resultant pectin. Chemical composition of dried mango peels ascertained a high percent of total pectin, being 16.01 % (on dry weight basis). With respect to microwave heating, the optimal experimented power was 600W, and 6 minutes as the best short holding time, which gave 12.80 % yield, 86.54% recovery and 77.20% anhydrogalacturonic acid (AGA) of extracted pectin. Comparing to the commercial pectin, the results of some physico–chemical characterstics of isolated pectin, revealed that the pectin isolated by microwave heating from mango peels, being to some extent analogous to the commercial pectin with respect to its qualities, such as high methoxyl pectin, high degree of estri-fication (DE), and high percent of AGA besides its high viscosity, followed by the pectin isolated using the conventional method. Statistical analysis of organoleptic data showed no significant differ-ences between strawberry jam prepared by using commercial pectin and that treated with pectin isolated by microwave heating as affecting their texture, color, taste and preference. Besides, high significant differences were detected between var-ious concentrations of added pectin, with respect to the texture alone. Generally, the utilization of pectin isolated from mango peels using microwave heating in jam processing gave high quality attrib-utes resembling that of the commercial pectin when added to strawberry jam and this would also lead to gain economical benefits.

Keywords

• microwave
• pectin
• mango