Valorization of Cocoa Husks: Pectin Recovery

industries like the pharmaceutical or the food ones. In this frame, the husks of roasted cocoa beans, that are a by-product of the cocoa processing industry, can constitute a source of pectin. The recovery process has been already defined at laboratory scale with boiling acid extraction (pH 2.5). This process is suitable to recover a quantity of pectin, expressed as anhydro-galacturonic acid (AGA), around 8 g AGA/100 g dry husks; this pectin is characterized by low degree of methylation (%DM around 31) and acetylation degree lower than 2%. In this paper the effects of some operative conditions on pectin quantity and quality were studied, in order to optimize the parameters that can make the process economically competitive: the in-excess quantities of solvents and operation time were reduced, without altering yield and pectin characteristics. In particular, the extract was concentrated by 13.3%, the ethanol for pectin precipitation was reduced (ratio extract to ethanol equal to 1:4), and it was also demonstrated that a single washing with 40% ethanol is sufficient to obtain a purified product.