3 Chapters
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Peel waste are highly perishable and seasonal, is a problem to the processing industries and pollution monitoring agencies. There is always an increased attention in bringing useful products from waste materials and citrus wastes are no exceptions. Suitable methods have to be adopted to utilize them for the conversion into value-added products [Nand, (1998)].
Pectin exists in varying amounts in fruit cell walls and has important nutritional and technological properties, mainly because of its ability to form gels (Westerlund etal, 1991). Pectin is a polysaccharide having properties such as gelation and emulsion stabilization which make it useful in the manufacture of food, cosmetics, and medicine. It is a normal constituent of food and may therefore be safely ingested. Citrus peel, a by-product of the citrus processing industry, is a suitable source of pectin (Sakai and Okushima 1980).Pectin is a naturally occurring substance present in all plant tissue, calcium pectin being present between the cell walls and serving as a strengthening or building agent.
The traditional use of pectin has been as a gelling agent, and this has largely dictated the types of fruit from which commercial grades can be manufactured. A major consideration is the availability of fruit by-products in sufficient quantity and quality. Before the development of a distinct pectin industry it was often the practice for jam makers to make a simple pectin extract from waste fruit material such as apple cores or surplus orange pith, but commercial production demands large quantities of available raw material. The history of the industry up to 1950 is described by Kertesz. Since that date, there has been a geographical shift of the production of pectin, driven to a large extent by difficulties with water supply and more especially effluent disposal in areas such as southern California, so that the major US plants producing citrus pectin, who had come to dominate that
INTRODUCTION
Peel waste are highly perishable and seasonal, is a problem to the processing industries and pollution monitoring agencies. There is always an increased attention in bringing useful products from waste materials and citrus wastes are no exceptions. Suitable methods have to be adopted to utilize them for the conversion into value-added products [Nand, (1998)].
Pectin exists in varying amounts in fruit cell walls and has important nutritional and technological properties, mainly because of its ability to form gels (Westerlund etal, 1991). Pectin is a polysaccharide having properties such as gelation and emulsion stabilization which make it useful in the manufacture of food, cosmetics, and medicine. It is a normal constituent of food and may therefore be safely ingested. Citrus peel, a by-product of the citrus processing industry, is a suitable source of pectin (Sakai and Okushima 1980).Pectin is a naturally occurring substance present in all plant tissue, calcium pectin being present between the cell walls and serving as a strengthening or building agent.
The traditional use of pectin has been as a gelling agent, and this has largely dictated the types of fruit from which commercial grades can be manufactured. A major consideration is the availability of fruit by-products in sufficient quantity and quality. Before the development of a distinct pectin industry it was often the practice for jam makers to make a simple pectin extract from waste fruit material such as apple cores or surplus orange pith, but commercial production demands large quantities of available raw material. The history of the industry up to 1950 is described by Kertesz. Since that date, there has been a geographical shift of the production of pectin, driven to a large extent by difficulties with water supply and more especially effluent disposal in areas such as southern California, so that the major US plants producing citrus pectin, who had come to dominate that