Sustainable Design of Biorefinery Processes on Cocoa Pod: Optimization of Pectin Extraction Process with Variations of pH, Temperature, and Time

Pectin is a polysaccharide compound, which is a D-galacturonic acid polymer that is connected by α-1-4 glycosidic bonds. Pectin can be extracted from the cocoa pod. This research is part of research on the Sustainable Design of biorefinery processes of cocoa pod.  The aim of this research were to extract pectin from cocoa pod by optimizing pH, temperature and time. The response from this study was the yield, pectin content and methoxyl content. This research used the Surface Response Methodology (RSM) with  the center point obtained was pH 2.5, temperature 95 ° C and time was 3 hours.  The treatment consisted of pH, temperature, time, and the expected response was the results of pectin, pectin content, and methoxyl content. The result showed that the pH, temperature and extraction time of cocoa pod had significant effect to the yield of pectin, pectin content and methoxyl content. The optimum conditions for the extraction of pectin were pH of 2, temperature of 95 °C and extraction time of 3 hours with a predicted yield of pectin of 2.33%, pectin content of 44.39% and methoxyl content of 7.07%. The functional groups between the standard pectin and the cocoa pod  pectin are not significantly different. They have the same variety of functional groups. This data supports that the extracted pectin has the same structure with standard pectin which is shown in the IR spectrum of of FTIR test.