Characterization of refined carrageenan from Kappaphycus alvarezii extracted using marine fungi

Abstract

Carrageenan is a polysaccharide that widely used in food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, textile and printing industries as a coagulate agent, stabilizer, and gelling agent. The extraction of carrageenan usually is carried out by alkali treatment, but it may have toxic effect for the environment. Therefore, another extraction method is required to reduce the toxic effect from carrageenan. Carrageenan can also be extracted by using a cellulolytic enzyme. A natural cellulolytic enzyme can be produced from endophytic fungi. The objective of this research was to extract carrageenan using endophytic fungal cellulase and to evaluate the effect of fungal cellulase concentration and extraction time on the quality of carrageenan. The materials used in this research were marine endophytic fungus (EN) and dried seaweed Kappaphycus alvarezii. This research was conducted in three steps. The first step was cultivating of endophytic fungus (EN) in cellulose basal medium. The second step was cellulase extraction from endophytic fungus EN. The last step was extraction of carrageenan by cellulase endophytic fungus. The highest yield was obtained by added 1% of EN cellulase enzyme and extraction period for 3 hours. Characteristics of carrageenan in generally met the standard, but the gel strength and whiteness was still below the standard.