Precipitation of Lemon Peel Pectin by Salting out Method

Lemon peel was used as a source of pectin. The precipitation process of lemon peel pectin with salting-out method was examined. The salting out technology was optimized by orthogonal experimentation on the basis of a series of single-factor experiments. The experimental results show that the factors could affect pectin precipitation to some degree, of which the amount of precipitant has the strongest influence. The optimum salting-out conditions were when: the amount of zinc sulfate used is 0.3 times the weight of the dry lemon peel, the pH value of the salting-out solution is 5.0, the temperature is set at 45℃, and the time of precipitation lasts 120 min. Granular pectin thus obtained is of good quality with a light yellow color and the extraction yield rate reaches 18.72%.