Indian Journal of Experimental Biology Vol. 57, March 2019, pp. 218-220 Simultaneous extraction of pectin, fibre, anthocyanin and oil from mulberry pomace Neelima Garg*, Preeti Yadav & Sanjay Kumar Division of Post Harvest Management, ICAR-Central Institute for Subtropical Horticulture, Lucknow-226 101, Uttar Pradesh, India Received 06 June 2018; revised 12 February 2019 Mulberry (Morus alba L.), (Fam. Moraceae) has characteristic tiny juicy fruits with sweet-tart taste. Its ripe fruits range in colour from white, pale, green, red, purple to black. The juice from red- purple mulberry variety has significant antioxidant value and food colouring properties. Though, a lot of research work has been carried out on mulberry juice, utilization of its pomace (processing waste comprising peel and seeds), has been largely ignored. Pomace constitutes about 40% of total fruit weight. Here, we have standardized protocols for potential extraction of pigment anthocyanin, fibre, pectin, and oil from mulberry pomace using a combination of organic and inorganic solvents and obtained an yield of 5.3% fibre, 1.58% pectin, 2.0% crude anthocyanins and 4.9% oil. The protocol allows complete utilization of waste left behind after juice extraction. Keywords: Fruit peel, Morus alba With the increasing health awareness among masses and growing popularity of processed products due to their high nutraceutical values, fruit processing industry is expanding fast, world over. As a result, huge quantum of fruit and vegetable waste is generated every year by the industry, leading to problem of its disposal coupled with environmental pollution issues. Over the last few years, considerable emphasis has been put on the recovery, recycling and upgrading of organic waste that can be transformed into several different useful products like biomolecules, phytochemicals, enzymes, food flavours, probiotics for food and feed and bio-fuels, etc. 1 . China is the leading country in the world in mulberry production 2 . In India, mulberry is cultivated in around 282 thousand hectares of land with Karnataka as the leading state followed by Andhra Pradesh, Manipur, West Bengal. Mulberry is grown primarily for silk production as its leaves have been used as feed for silk worms for hundreds of years. The fruits mature with red and purple colors due to plentiful anthocyanins, while some cultivars retain white, green fruits. Mulberry processing is extremely limited. Only few units in India is engaged in juice production. No other product is available in the market. Mulberry pomace, a byproduct of mulberry juice industry consisting of mainly peels, stems and seeds, accounts for approximately 40% of the fresh weight. Typically, mulberry pomace is used as a soil enhancer, feed and fertilizer or is otherwise dumped in landfills, which contributes to environmental problems 3 . Djilas et al. 4 have recommended utilization of pomace as substrate for getting food supplements with high nutraceutical value. Present paper describes approach for simultaneous extraction of pectin, fibre, anthocyanin and oil from mulberry pomace for further use in food industry. Materials and Methods Collection of fruits Mulberry accession, MI-497 was collected from the experimental farm of ICAR-Central Institute for Subtropical Horticulture, Lucknow and washed under running tap water. The juice was extracted with the help of hydraulic press. Preparation of material Pomace left after mulberry fruit juice extraction comprising of peel, stem and seeds, was dried in dehydrator at 60°C till constant weight. For extraction of oil, seeds were separated from pomace manually. Methodology For extraction of anthocyanin, fibre, pectin and oil, methods described in AOAC 5 were followed. Protocol has been described in Fig. 1. Boiling the pomace with 3% sodium hexametaphosphate for 2 h resulted in separation of pectin and anthocyanin from fibre. Fibre was obtained using the residue part, while supernatant was used for extraction of anthocyanin and pectin. For this, acetone was added to supernatant in 3:1 ratio and kept overnight at 4°C. The contents were filtered and the precipitate was used as pectin while the filtrate was freeze dried for getting anthocyanin. Oil was extracted from seeds with hexane as solvent. The fatty acid in the oil was estimated as per the method described by Christie 6 . The samples containing fatty acid were first esterified using methanol. The fatty ————— *Correspondence: Fax: +91 522 2841025; Mob.: +91 9415786633 E-mail: neelimagargg@rediffmail.com