PLANT CELL BIOTECHNOLOGY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

Recent studies show the need to utilize food wastes as alternative resources for pectin production. In this research, pectin was produced from dried ripe pineapple peel flours (DRPP) mixed with dried orange peel flour (DOP) in the ratio: 10:1, 10:2, 10:3, 10:4, and 10:5. The products were labelled as A1, A2, A3, A4 and A5 respectively. Another set of pectin was produced from mixtures of dried unripe pineapple peel flours (DUPP) with DOP in the ratio: 10:1, 10:2, 10:3, 10:4 and 10:5. They were labelled as B1, B2, B3, B4 and B5 respectively. Standard methods were used to determine % yield, % ash content and mineral content of the pectin products. The determined minerals are: Na, K, Ca, Mg, Zn, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni and P. Percentage yield of DRPP-DOP pectins ranged from 6.32% (A1) to 15.21% (A4) and 6.20% (B5) to 14.80% (B3) for DUPP-DOP pectins. In DRPP-DOP samples, Zn, ranged from 4.56 ± 0.03 ppm (A1) to 4.93±0.02 ppm (A4); Mg ranged from 0.81±0.02 ppm (A1) to 6.77 ppm (A4); Ca ranged from 2.05 ± 0.09 ppm (A1) to 5.16±0.18 A4; K ranged from 3.03±0.03 ppm (A1) to 9.19±0.17 ppm (A4). In DUPP-DOP pectins; Zn ranged from 2.43±0.00 ppm (B1) to 5.03±0.07 ppm (B5); Mg ranged from 1.43±0.02 ppm (B1) to 6.86±0.00 ppm (B4); Ca ranged from 3.77±0.40 ppm (B1) to 8.03±0.26 ppm (B4) and K ranged from 6.34±0.20 ppm (B1) to 12.96±0.54 ppm (B4). These show that some of these minerals are higher in DUPP-DOP than in DRPP-DOP pectin samples.