Pectin content and composition from different food waste streams

Abstract

In the present paper, 26 food waste streams were selected according to their exploitation potential and investigated in terms of pectin content. The isolated pectin, subdivided into calcium bound and alkaline extractable pectin, was fully characterized in terms of uronic acid and other sugar composition, methylation and acetylation degree. It was shown that many waste streams can be a valuable source of pectin, but also that pectin structures present a huge structural diversity, resulting in a broad range of pectin structures. These can have different physicochemical and biological properties, which are useful in a wide range of applications. Even if the data could not cover all the possible batch by batch and country variabilities, to date this represents the most complete pectin characterization from food waste streams ever reported in the literature with a homogeneous methodology.

Keywords: Acetylation degree; Food waste; Methylation degree; Pectin; Uronic acid.