PRODUKSI PEKTIN DARI TEPUNG KULIT BUAH KAKAO (Theobroma cacao L.) DENGAN VARIASI PENGUKUSAN DAN JENIS PELARUT ASAM

In the cocoa beans processing produce cocoa pod husks and pulps. Cocoa pod husk�s wastes have not been optimized by the majority of cocoa farmers in Yogyakarta which are used as animal feed, fertilizer, and discarded. According to the literature, cocoa pod husks contain of pectin component. Producing pectin is the one of cocoa pod husk utilization to improve its benefit value. Pectin is widely used in food and non-food industries as thickeners, gelling agent, an additive in the manufacture of soap cream, and pasta. However, the pectin requirement in Indonesia until 2012 was imported as much as 240,792 kg. The objective of this research is to study the characteristics of pectin from cocoa pod husk which is made with the variation of preliminary treatment and the type of acid solvent. In this research, the first step before extraction is steaming and without steaming treatment as a preliminary process. Pectin extraction is done by solvent variation from belimbing wuluh and hydrochloride acid at pH 2.8. It also done at 90oC for 90 minutes. The resulting of pectin is characterized by its yield, water content, ash content, methoxyl content, galacturonic content, degree of esterification, equivalent weight, gel strength, and colour. The result show that the highest yield is in the belimbing wuluh utilization with steam processing which has 6.91% for the yield, 10.94% for the water content, 9.60% for the ash content, 12.16% for the methoxyl content, 79.31% for polygalacturonic content, 97.85% for degree of esterification, 2161 mg of equivalent weight, 4.93 g force for gel strength, and brown yellow for the pectin�s colour. The added value which can be obtained was Rp 7.682.840,00/year for 6.5 years Return of Investment