Effect of Multi-enzyme (Pectinase, Cellulase and Hemicellulase) Treatment on Clarification of Papaya (Carica papaya) Fruit Juice

Abstract

Clarified fruit juices are preferred by a significant portion of the population and are becoming popular in global fruit juice market. Many of the other processed fruit products like, clear juice cocktails, cordials, ready to serve drinks, clear nectars, clear juice blends, translucent jelly products, candies etc. are made from clarified juices. Apart from the traditional clear juices from apple and other citrus fruits, several market opportunities exist for clarified juices produced from the tropical fruits of high pulp content like banana, papaya, guava, mango etc. which are being produced abundantly in India. This study was carried out with an objective of producing high quality clarified papaya juice with high yield by multi-enzyme treatment. Papaya juice was given treatments with various concentration levels of the enzymes pectinase, cellulase and hemicellulase for different incubation times (30-150 min) at incubation temperature of 55 0C. The effect of enzyme treatments was studied on turbidity and yield of clarified papaya juice obtained for each enzyme separately, and optimum process conditions were determined. Based on these results papaya juice was given simultaneous treatment of all the three enzymes with compromised process conditions (Pectinase 0.90%, Cellulase 0.40%, and Hemicellulase 0.50% with 90 min incubation time at 55 0C) which produced clarified juice with very small value of turbidity as 11 NTU and yield as 77.4%. RSM(Response Surface Methodology) employing a second order central composite design was used to obtain optimum process conditions for simultaneous treatment with the range of variables for enzymatic treatment process conditions (Enzyme concentration: 0.20-1.20% w/w, 0.20-0.80% w/w and 0.20-0.80% w/w for pectinase, cellulase and hemicellulase respectively, Incubation time 30-150 min and Incubation temperature 55 0C) based on the above experiments. The results obtained for optimum process conditions were very close to that obtained in previous experiments giving the optimum values as 0.87%, 0.50% and 0.50% enzyme concentration for Pectinase, Cellulase and Hemicellulase respectively, and incubation period of 86 min at incubation temperature of 55 0C. Under this condition, the papaya juice was obtained with turbidity value as 9 NTU and 78.8 per cent of yield.