Abstract
The demand for bromelian and pineapple fruit has been increasing substantially in the world because of their benefits for the human health and use in diverse areas. In this context, this work aimed to study the capacity of higher retention (concentration); bromelain activity underwent ultrafiltration from pineapple juice (Ananas comusus L. Merrill). All assays were carried out at pH 7.0 and 7.5, and at 0.05 and 0.40 bar of transmembrane pressures. Results have shown that at the best operating conditions, between 85 and 87% of bromelain activity was recovered using the plain membrane separation process at 0.05 bar. The ultrafiltration has shown the capacity to retain 100% of proteolytic activity of the bromelain extracted. The samples have kept the same physics properties after ultrafiltration, and the result was verified via electrophoresis. The bromelain enzyme obtained was characterized, and pH 7 and between 30 and 40 °C were the best conditions. Therefore, this work shows that the use of both polymeric membranes has shown high efficiency, and can be used in the purification of bromelain enzymes.
Highlights
The production of pineapple fruit (Ananas comosus) has increased sustainably during the last two decades
The pineapple juice was extracted, prepared at room temperature and pressure, using a pulp mass of 650 g that initially was passed to simple filtration through cotton to remove the dispersed solids
Shows that the characteristics found in the pulp of pineapple is similar to the skin, and the amount of protein is the same with all parts of the fruit
Summary
The production of pineapple fruit (Ananas comosus) has increased sustainably during the last two decades. Pineapple can be consumed in several ways, such as in nature form, fresh-cut preserved fruit or mixed with flavor foods such as beef, ham or chicken meat. In the last ten years, an important change in consumer preferences was observed, being that fresh Ananas fruit was more in demand than canned [1,2]. Pineapple has been important in human food for over five centuries, but it was only after the discovery of pineapple bromelain that it increased its economic interest and boosted research into the purification and use of this enzyme [2,3,4,5]. In the medical contribution this enzyme is associate with cystein protease activity. Bromelain has been used for dental care, in digestive aid and in food industries, such as breweries, meat processing, textiles and other [14,15,16,17,18,19]
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