Journal of Food Engineering 166 (2015) 111118

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Journal of Food Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jfoodeng

Inuence of the drying operating conditions on the chemical

characteristics of the citric acid extracted pectins from pera sweet
orange (Citrus sinensis L. Osbeck) albedo and avedo
Karine Zanella , Osvaldir Pereira Taranto
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 9 December 2014
Received in revised form 19 May 2015
Accepted 29 May 2015
Available online 30 May 2015
Keywords:
Albedo
Flavedo
Pectin
Chemical characteristics

a b s t r a c t
In this work, the effect of the process conditions used for the separately drying of milled albedo and
avedo on the chemical characteristics of the pectins extracted in a second step from Pera sweet orange
(Citrus sinensis L. Osbeck) by using citric acid were studied. The highest yield value obtained was 38.21%
w/w for dried albedo (Pectin-A) at 70 C and 0.1 m s1 of air velocity. The analyses of Fourier transform
infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) shows that both Pectin-A and Pectin-F (Flavedo) are characterized as high
methoxyl pectin (HM) (DE > 50%). The pectin was assessed for its molecular weight (MW) by the
technique of gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and the results of MW varied between
337.41606.85 kDa for Pectin-A and 487.921702.00 kDa for Pectin-F. The quality of pectin, determined
by the galacturonic acid (AGA), has the highest value of 93.64% for Pectin-A.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
During the orange juice industrial processing, peels, seeds
and wet pulp are all considered wastes. According to Licandro
and Odio (2002), about 4060% of an orange weight is considered
waste. Thus, the search for new alternatives of using wastes to
produce by-products presents an opportunity for further research
while contributing to sustainable processing. Bran citrus pulp,
essential oils, avonoids and pectin are all examples of
by-products and have a signicant commercial value.
Pectins are natural hydrocolloids found in higher plants, widely
used as gelling agents, stabilizers, and emulsiers in the food
industry (May, 1990). This heteropolysaccharide consists of
homogalacturonan (smooth regions), composed of an
a-(1 ? 4)D-GalAp chain, and rhamnogalacturonan (hairy
regions) showing the repeating disaccharide GalAp-a-(1 ? 2)Rhap-a-(1 ? 4)-GalA pa-(1 ? 2)-Rhap. In addition, arabinose and
galactose side chains can also be attached creating heteropolysaccharide complexes of rhamnogalacturonan with arabinans, galactans, and arabinogalactans. It is divided according to their degree
of methoxylation (DM) into two categories: high-methoxyl pectin
(HM) when DM P 50%, and low-methoxyl pectin (LM) when
Corresponding author at: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of
Campinas, 500, Albert Einstein Av., 13083-852 Campinas, SP, Brazil.
E-mail addresses: karinezll@msn.com (K. Zanella), val@feq.unicamp.br
(O.P. Taranto).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2015.05.033
0260-8774/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DM < 50% (BeMiller, 1986; Rolin and De Vries, 1990; Willats

et al., 2006). Reports are available on the extraction of pectin using
different methods and fruits such as citrus (Elnawawi and Shehata,
1987; Kurita et al., 2008; Liu et al., 2006), peach pomace (Faravash
and Ashtiani, 2007), mulberry (Liu et al., 2010), sunower (Shi
et al., 1996; Iglesias and Lozano, 2004), passion fruit (Pinheiro
et al., 2008) and apple pomace (Constenla et al., 2002; Min et al.,
2011).
The steps of the pectin process includes the extraction of raw
material, purication of the extracted liquid and pectin isolation
from this extract (Rolin and De Vries, 1990). Traditionally, the
extraction takes place using a heated solvent under acidic or basic
solution (McCready and McComb, 1952). The industry often utilizes environmentally-harmful solvents, such as a mixture of water
and hexane, hydrochloric acid, methanol or carbon dioxide (Liu
et al., 2006). An alternative is the use of a solvent mixture of water
and a weak organic acid (e.g. citric acid) as the extracting agent,
that is also more environmentally friendly.
To obtain pectin with high quality during manufacturing, it is
necessary to have a sufcient amount of a suitable raw material.
To ensure this, the drying of the raw material is a necessary step
(May, 1990).
The aim of this work was to investigate the effect of the drying
process conditions on the chemical characteristics of the pectin
extracted from Pera sweet orange (Citrus sinensis L. Osbeck)
albedo and avedo by using dilute citric acid solution.

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methods and conditions, with a slight modication in the temperature. The conditions used were:

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Preparation of raw material and moisture content determination
of orange peel
The Pera sweet oranges were purchased in a market of
Campinas, Brazil. After washing, the oranges were submitted to
the avedo (colored portion of the peel) peeling process using a
manual orange peeler (Lucre). The albedo (white and spongy portion of the peel) was then separated, after removal of the avedo.
This process involved the extraction of the juice through a commercial fruit squeezer (Bellagio, Britnia) and the manual removal
of the remaining albedo aggregate, such as juice vesicles. Next, the
albedo and avedo samples were separately ground in a mill rotor
cyclone (TE-651/2), providing particle size equal or smaller than 10
mesh Tyler (2.0 mm diameter). The samples were then stored in
airtight plastic bags and placed under cooling at a temperature of
18 C into a domestic freezer (CVU20, Consul).
The orange albedo and avedo were separately analyzed for
their respective moisture contents. The moisture content was
determined in triplicate through a gravimetric method at a temperature of 105 C for 24 h (AOAC, 1995). Eq. (1) gives the moisture
content:

X DB

mini  mds
mds

2.2. Convective drying

An experimental design was carried out and a triplicate was
applied in the central point (0.2 m s1, 55 C), as shown in
Table 1. The drying of the raw material (albedo and avedo) took
place in a xed bed by varying the supercial air velocity from
0.1 to 0.3 m s1 and the drying temperature from 40 to 70 C.
The drying process occurred until there was no further change in
the weight of the raw material. The results were analyzed by
means of drying rates (N = dXWL/dt), where XWL is the mass of
the water that was lost at each time by the raw tissue, expressed
on dried mass, and t is the drying time, versus the dimensionless
relative moisture content (RMC), obtained by Eq. (2):

X t  X eq
X 0  X eq

where
Xt = moisture content of the sample at time t (g water =g dry mass );
moisture
content
of
the
sample
Xeq = equilibrium
(g water =g dry mass );
X0 = initial moisture content of the sample (g water =g dry mass ).
2.3. Pectin extraction
The pectin extraction procedure occurred in batch, according to
McCready and McComb (1952) and Kratchanova et al. (1994)

Table 1
Experimental design.

Experiments

CP1a

CP2a

CP3a

Temperature (C)
Air velocity (m s1)

40
0.1

70
0.1

40
0.3

70
0.3

55
0.2

55
0.2

55
0.2

Central point (CP).

Extraction temperature: 80 C.
pH: 2.5 (medium value).
Agitation velocity: 650 rpm.
Ration m/v: 1:70 (mass:volume).
Extraction time: 120 min.

Different mixtures were made using the dehydrated albedo or

avedo with water (solute/solvent 1:70). The mixtures pH were
adjusted to 2.5 using a solution of citric acid. Afterwords, the mixtures were put under agitation (120 min) on the magnetic stirrer
with constant temperature of 80 C and agitation velocity of
650 rpm.
The extract containing pectin was centrifuged for 10 min at
10000 rpm. Ethanol (95%) was added dropwise to the supernatant
(2:1 v/v) and then left to rest for one hour to allow pectin precipitation. It was then separated by ltration (microporous lter
paper, 520, Fanem) and rinsed twice with 95% and 70% ethanol.
The pectin produced was dried into a convection oven at 50 C
until constant weight. The extraction yield was calculated as the
ratio between the dehydrated pectin mass and the raw material
mass.

where
XDB = moisture content of the sample on dry basis (gwater/gdry mass);
mini = sample initial mass (g);
mds = dried sample mass (g).

RMC







2.4. Degree of esterication

The analyses of the degree of esterication (DE) of the pectin
samples were conducted according to Monsoor et al. (2001b) using
the Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) method. A sample was incorporated with KBr (ca. 90:10, salt:sample) and pressed into a 2 mm
pellet. The FTIR spectra were collected at the absorbance mode at
4.0 cm1 resolution in the region of 4004000 cm1 using the
infrared spectrometer with Fourier transform (Nicolet 6700,
Thermo Scientic).
The degree of esterication of pectin samples was calculated
using the software Origin 8.0 with the following expression: DE
(%) = AEGA/(AEGA + AFGA). This expression were found in literature
(Sato et al., 2011; Sinitsya et al., 2000; Singthong et al., 2004)
and AEGA means the peak area corresponding to the esteried galacturonic acid (ca. 1740 cm1) and AFGA means the peak area corresponding to the free galacturonic acid (ca. 1640 cm1)
(Gnanasambandam and Proctor, 2000; Monsoor et al., 2001b).
2.5. Galacturonic acid
The uronic acid content was determined by a modication of
colorimetric m-hydroxydiphenyl method (Blumenkrantz and
Asboe-Hansen, 1973) using D-galacturonic acid (Fluka Chemika)
as standard. After the samples were prepared, the absorbance reading was performed in a spectrophotometer (Cirrus 80, Femto) at a
wavelength of 520 nm. All experiments were performed in triplicate. After reading each essay, the absorbance values were compared with the calibration curve previously done.
2.6. Molecular weight distribution of pectin
Pectin molecular weight and its distribution (pectin-A and
pectin-F) was analyzed by gel permeation chromatography (GPC)
(Berth and Lexow, 1991), using the following specications:
Disolutions of pectin in water (1.0 mg/mL), sample injection volume of 3 ll, a Ultrahydrogel column (7.8  300 mm, 22 C,
Linear), mobile phase ow rate of 0.5 mL/min, potassium phosphate buffer solution (pH 6.5, Dynamic), membrane lters
(Phenex RC 0.45 lm), peristaltic pump (515, Water), degasser

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K. Zanella, O.P. Taranto / Journal of Food Engineering 166 (2015) 111118

(VE7510, Viscotek), injector of 200 ll (7725i, Rheodyne), and

detectors at 50 C (TDA, Viscotek).

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Moisture content of orange peel and convective drying
The moisture content obtained by the gravimetric method was
3.431 0.099 g water =g dry mass for the albedo and 2.754 0.002
g water =g dry mass for the avedo.
The drying process of the pera sweet orange peel was carried
out in a xed bed dryer to evaluate the behavior of the albedo
and avedo during this process. Fig. 1 shows the drying rate (moisture content ratio function) of these materials under the studied
conditions. The ability to reproduce the drying process could be
observed by the results of the central point. The critical moisture
contents of these materials were not determined.

0,016

Under all studied conditions, it is possible to notice that the drying time of the albedo was lower than that of avedo due to the different structures of the materials. While the albedo is more spongy
and porous, the avedo presents higher stiffness, making it difcult
to eliminate water and thus increasing the drying time. In addition,
the internal moisture content of the avedo is more strongly linked
to its structure than in the albedo.
It was also veried that albedo and avedo presented three distinct drying periods. First, the initial period of temperature adjustment to the material (1.000.97 RMC). Second, a small constant
rate period, referring to the evaporation of surface moisture
(0.970.95 RMC). Lastly, a long falling rate period (0.950.00
RMC), split into two parts. The rst falling period (0.950.55
RMC) is relative to the internal moisture easily removed, where
the rate slowly decreases until a plateau with a virtually constant
value. The second falling period (0.550.00 RMC) is relative to
the internal moisture that presents barriers to its removal.
Though the heating of the material increases the solubility of some

Drying Rate - Albedo

0,014
0,012

N (min-1 )

0,01
0,008
0,006
0,004
0,002
0

0,1

0,2

Assay_1 (40 C, 0.1 m/s)

Assay_4 (70 C, 0.3 m/s)
CP3 (55 C, 0.2 m/s)

0,016

0,3

0,4

0,5

0,6

RMC
Assay_2 (70 C, 0.1 m/s)
CP1 (55 C, 0.2 m/s)

0,7

0,8

0,9

Assay_3 (40 C, 0.3 m/s)

CP2 (55 C, 0.2 m/s)

Drying Rate - Flavedo

0,014

N (min-1 )

0,012
0,01
0,008
0,006
0,004
0,002
0
0

0,1

0,2

0,3

0,4

0,5

0,6

0,7

0,8

0,9

RMC
Assay_1 (40 C, 0.1 m/s)
Assay_4 (70 C, 0.3 m/s)
CP3 (55 C, 0.2 m/s)

Assay_2 (70 C, 0.1 m/s)

CP1 (55 C, 0.2 m/s)

Assay_3 (40 C, 0.3 m/s)

CP2 (55 C, 0.2 m/s)

Fig. 1. Drying rate of the orange albedo (A) and avedo (B). This gure shows that with the highest temperature and air velocity (assay 4) the drying rate is faster than the
other arrangement. Besides, it also shows the rating periods during the dry process.

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K. Zanella, O.P. Taranto / Journal of Food Engineering 166 (2015) 111118

Table 2
Albedo and avedo nal moisture content (gwater/gdry

mass).

Experiment

1 (40 C, 0.1 m s1)

2 (70 C, 0.1 m s1)

3 (40 C, 0.3 m s1)

4 (70 C, 0.3 m s1)

CP1a

CP2a

CP3a

Albedo
Flavedo

0.122
0.016

0.099
0.024

0.164
0.092

0.080
0.016

0.092
0.050

0.085
0.047

0.091
0.033

Central point (CP) (55 C, 0.2 m s1).

pectic substances, this might provoke cell rupture and debonding

the cellular structure (Daz et al., 2003). Therefore, less structured
materials offer less resistance to water transport, leading the second part of the falling rate period.
In addition, it is noticeable that the drying rate curve presents
sigmoid shape. It can also be seen that at a higher temperature,
the initial drying rate is much higher. This is demonstrated in assay
number 4 (0.950.85 RMC). During the drying process, the moisture content of the material decreases and this makes the temperature on the drying rate decreases too.
The nal moisture of albedo and avedo (Table 2) were less
than 0.33 g water =g dry mass . This is the acceptable standard value of
moisture for dehydrated fruits (Brasil, 2005), showing that the drying process chosen in this study was efcient for these materials
under the studied conditions. It must be observed that the values
of the nal moisture content of all assays from albedo were higher
than the nal moisture content from avedo. This can indicate that
the albedo has higher amounts of bound moisture in its structure.

due to the fact that this material has a greater quantity of pectic
substances in its composition, when compared to avedo.
Other authors have obtained similar results during the extraction of pectin from albedo and avedo. Chaidedgumjorn et al.
(2009) studied the acid extraction (hydrochloric acid) of pectin
from the albedo and avedo of Citrus maxima. The results of this
study concluded a yield of 11.26% for pectin extracted from albedo
and 8.51% for pectin extracted from avedo (yield expressed in
grams of dry pectin by grams of dry sample). Liu et al. (2006) performed microwave-assisted extraction from a Navel orange and
obtained the yields of 1.6 and 0.6 (g dehydrated pectin =100g raw material ),
respectively to the pectin extracted from albedo and from avedo.
On the extraction yield (ANOVA table, 95% condence interval),
was not found any direct effect on the drying process conditions,
but the values of the extraction yield obtained in this work are
greater or equivalent to those found in other studies (Elnawawi
and Shehata, 1987; Kurita et al., 2008; Srivastava and Malviya,
2011). This makes the use of the citric acid interesting during the
extraction process.

3.2. Extraction yield

3.3. Characterization of the extracted pectin
The values of the extraction yield of pectin obtained from
albedo and avedo are shown in Table 3. The extraction yield is
expressed in grams of dry pectin by grams of dry raw material
(albedo or avedo).
The extraction yield of Pectin-A ranged from 29.79% to 38.21%,
while those of Pectin-F ranged from 20.28% and 29.35%. These
higher-yielding values obtained by extraction from albedo are

Table 3
Extraction yield of pectin from albedo and avedo.
Assay

1 (40 C, 0.1 m s1)

2 (70 C, 0.1 m s1)
3 (40 C, 0.3 m s1)
4 (70 C, 0.3 m s1)
CP1a (55 C, 0.2 m s1)
CP2a (55 C, 0.2 m s1)
CP3a (55 C, 0.2 m s1)
a

Yield
(g dehydrated

pectin =100g dehydrated sample )

Pectin-A

Pectin-F

31.73
38.21
32.94
29.79
33.64
36.25
32.64

29.35
28.27
26.74
25.23
20.28
28.45
24.07

Central point (CP).

Table 4
Degree of esterication of Pectin-A and Pectin-F.
Sample

1 (40 C, 0.1 m s1)

2 (70 C, 0.1 m s1)
3 (40 C, 0.3 m s1)
4 (70 C, 0.3 m s1)
CP1a (55 C, 0.2 m s1)
CP2a (55 C, 0.2 m s1)
CP3a (55 C, 0.2 m s1)
a

Central point (CP).

Esterication degree (%)

Pectin-A

Pectin-F

70.83
70.21
71.02
61.03
67.51
77.40
72.00

58.98
70.52
61.38
70.01
77.17
76.03
58.84

3.3.1. Degree of esterication by FTIR spectroscopy

As shown in Table 4, it is possible to see the degree of esterication of Pectin-A and Pectin-F. It can also be observed that in both
samples of pectin, the greatest value of the degree of esterication
was obtained in one of the central points.
It was also noticed that there is homogeneity among the pectin
samples. The samples obtained are classied as being of
high-methoxyl pectin (HM) because all values obtained present
degree of esterication above 50%. Similar results were reported
in the literature (Fishman et al., 2003; Chaidedgumjorn et al., 2009).
As previously mentioned, the drying process did not have direct
effects on the degree of esterication. This could be explained since
between the drying process and the DE analyses, there are numerous other processes which might have hidden some of these
effects. Some authors reported similar results (Monsoor, 2005;
Constenla et al., 2002).
Graphical representations of the spectra obtained for Pectin-A
and Pectin-F are shown in Fig. 2. It was observed that the spectra
of the pectin samples are similar to each other in their main bands
(9001900 cm1).
This similarity implies equal compositions of samples.
According to Gnanasambandam and Proctor (2000), a small difference in the structure and composition of a molecule can result in
signicant changes in the intensity of absorption peaks in the
FTIR. Therefore, it is expected that samples of same origin have
smaller spectral variations, such as observed in this work.
From the spectra presented above, it could be veried that the
proles of the Pectin-A and Pectin-F are similar to each other.
This feature in particular, permits the use of the FTIR technique
as quality control of these polysaccharides (Gnanasambandam
and Proctor, 2000; Monsoor et al., 2001a).
Fig. 3 shows graphical representations of individual spectra of
the Pectin A, with the highest degree of esterication (CP2
77%), and the Pectin-F, with the lowest degree of esterication
(Assay 1 58%). The analysis of the spectra of Pectin-A and

K. Zanella, O.P. Taranto / Journal of Food Engineering 166 (2015) 111118

115

Fig. 2. The FTIR spectra of Pectin-A (pectin samples obtained by the albedo extraction) (A) and Pectin-F (pectin samples obtained by the avedo extraction) (B). This gure
brings all the spectra of pectin samples, including the ngerprint region.

Pectin-F are described simultaneously, since the main difference

between them is related to the intensity of the absorbance and
not to their characteristic.
There are several absorption bands common to both pectin
samples studied. The bands around the region of 3436 cm1
(Pectin-A) and 3428 cm1 (Pectin-F) refer to OH stretching. This
is due to adsorbed moisture, and both inter and intramolecular
hydrogen bonding of galacturonic acid polymer in the pectin samples; Bands around the region of 2935 cm1 (Pectin-A) and
2939 cm1 (Pectin-F) were from CH absorption and due to stretching vibration of methyl group (CH3); The strongest bands, occurring around 1760 cm1 (Pectin-A) and 1700 (Pectin-F), refers to
the absorption of ester carbonyl groups (C@O) from carboxyl
groups with methanol (COOCH3). On the other hand, bands around
1635 cm1 (Pectin-A) and 1639 cm1 (Pectin-F) indicates the carboxylate ion asymmetric stretching band (COO) from free carboxyl groups. The carboxylate groups also present a weaker
symmetric stretching band near 1400 cm1, difcult to quantify,

which may cause minor changes in the nal value of the degree
of esterication (Gnanasambandam and Proctor, 2000; Monsoor
et al., 2001a).
There are other bands, not numerically represented in Fig. 3, but
which are also identied in the spectra of pectin. Bands between
the region of 1500500 cm1 refers to neutral sugars. Bands
between the region of 12001100 cm1 are from the absorption
of ether (CAOAC) and carbonAcarbon (CAC) bounds in the ring
structure of pectin molecule. The absorption bands around 1300
800 cm1 are collectively referred to as the nger print region.
This region is unique to a compound and considered difcult to
interpret.

3.3.2. Galacturonic acid

The galacturonic acid contents are shown in Fig. 4. According to
the FAO (2009), for the pectin be considered a high quality pectin,
it must have a value of the galacturonic acid content above 65%. In

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K. Zanella, O.P. Taranto / Journal of Food Engineering 166 (2015) 111118

Albedo

Absorbance (a.u.)

Assay_3 (40 C, 0.3 m.s -1)

Wavenumber (cm-1)

B
Flavedo

Absorbance (a.u.)

Assay_1 (40 C, 0.1 m.s-1)

Wavenumber (cm-1)
Fig. 3. The FTIR spectrum for the Pectin-A with a higher degree of esterication (A) and for the Pectin-F with lower degree of esterication (B). Here is possible to see the main
peaks of the pectin samples, included those who are used to calculate the degree of esterication.

this work, all the obtained pectin samples, even from different
sources, are above this threshold.
The highest values of the galacturonic acid content were
obtained by the assay 4 (70 C and 0.3 m s1), both to Pectin-A
and Pectin-F. Despite the fact that albedo presents a higher quantity of pectin, its pectin quality is lower than the quality obtained
by avedo. However, according to FAO, all the pectin samples are
considered high quality pectin.
As noted for the other characteristics of pectin, the drying process conditions did not inuence the galacturonic acid content. The
high values of galacturonic acid may be related directly to drying
temperatures. At high temperatures (50100 C), degradation by
hydrolysis of some materials (e.g. hemicellulose and galactano),
that are mixed with pectin during the extraction may occur. This
makes pectin become the purest (Elnawawi and Shehata, 1987).
Additionally, according to Georgiev et al. (2012), during the purication stage of pectin with ethanol (70% and 95%), it is possible to

remove the neutral sugars from the pectin molecule, increasing

purity, and consequently the galacturonic acid content.

3.3.3. Molecular weight

The molecular weight (Mw) and the polydispersity index (PDI
Mw/Mn) of Pectin-A and Pectin-F are presented in Table 5.
The value of the PDI provides the evaluation of the amplitude
distribution of molecular weight. It is calculate by the ratio
between the weight average molecular weight (Mw) and the number average molecular weight (Mn). Since the values of the polydispersity are far from 1.0 (Georgiev et al., 2012), it can be seen that
the lengths of the chains formed are far from each other. It can
be also verify that the values of the PDI are quite divergent from
each other, for both samples. This behavior is acceptable since pectin from the same origin have wide range on the value of the polydispersity index (Catoire et al., 1998).

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K. Zanella, O.P. Taranto / Journal of Food Engineering 166 (2015) 111118

Fig. 4. The galacturonic acid content of Pectin-A and Pectin-F, showing that the highest values were obtained at assay 4 for both pectin samples.

Table 5
Molecular weight and PDI of Pectin-A and Pectin-F.
Assay

1 (40 C, 0.1 m s1)

2 (70 C, 0.1 m s1)
3 (40 C, 0.3 m s1)
4 (70 C, 0.3 m s1)
CP1a (55 C, 0.2 m s1)
CP2a (55 C, 0.2 m s1)
CP3a (55 C, 0.2 m s1)

Molecular weight Mw (kDa)

Polydispersity (PDIb) Mw/Mn

Pectin-A

Pectin-F

Pectin-A

Pectin-F

450.96
366.97
606.85
515.69
602.11
540.02
337.41

537.35
522.87
487.92
170.00
105.00
610.62
996.98

1.66
1.89
1.67
1.71
2.12
2.30
1.54

2.22
2.90
1.84
2.32
1.72
2.20
2.02

Central point (CP).

The polydispersity index (PDI) is calculated as the weight average molecular weight (Mw) divided by the number average molecular weight
(Mn).
b

From the molecular weight, it is possible to verify that the pectin are polymolecular and polydisperse, i.e., it is heterogeneous to
its chemical structure (observed by the PDI) and to its molecular
weight (BeMiller, 1986).
Traditionally, the molecular weight of commercial pectin varies
between 50,000 and 150,000 kDa (Sriamornsak, 2003), however,
the values found for Pectin-A and Pectin-F are above this standard.
This is probably due to the polymerization of neutral sugars present in pectin molecules and the consecutive crosslinking between
the polymerized neutral sugars and the pectin molecule. This
crosslinking may have happened due to the use of citric acid in
the extraction process, which might have served as a crosslinking
agent between pectin molecules and polymerized neutral sugars.
Producing in this way a three-dimensional polymers with high
molecular weight (Kurita et al., 2008).
The value of the molecular weight inuences the gel stiffness
formed by pectin. The higher the molecular weight, the greater
the stiffness of the gel. Therefore, molecules with low molecular
weight are unable to form gel in any condition (Pagan and Ibarz,
1999). Another important application of pectin samples with high
molecular weight is in foods derived from milk. In this example,
the pectin samples act as a stabilizer, and according to Deckers
et al. (1986), the increase in the value of the molecular weight
increases the stability of these foods. Therefore, the pectin samples
obtained from albedo and avedo are capable of forming gels with
high stiffness and are conducive to the use as a stabilizer in food.

4. Conclusions
Different drying process conditions were applied to verify if a
change in conditions would inuences the characteristic of the
extracted pectin samples. Convective drying showed to be satisfactory since the nal moisture content for albedo and avedo were
below the stipulated standard value for dehydrated fruits (0.33
g water =g dry mass ). Even not having inuences of the drying process
conditions on the characteristics of pectin, the utilized process
proved to be feasible to produce pectin with high yield and high
quality, since, independent of the choice of the temperature and
air velocity on the drying process conditions, the values obtained
for the extraction yield, characteristics and quality of the pectin
were satisfactory.

Acknowledgment
The authors would like to acknowledge the nancial support of
Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Level Personnel
(CAPES).

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