Single-step recovery of pectin and essential oil from lemon waste by ohmic heating assisted extraction/hydrodistillation: A multi-response optimization study

The main products obtained from citrus wastes are pectin and essential oil. In this work, ohmic heating assisted extraction/hydrodistillation (OHAE/H) was applied for the simultaneous recovery of pectin and essential oil from lemon waste. Optimum OHAE/H conditions to maximize the yield of pectin and essential oil were determined with response surface methodology. Three independent variables, namely liquid to solid ratio (w:v), extraction/hydrodistillation time (min) and voltage gradient (V/cm) were varied to obtain maximum pectin and essential oil yield. Optimum OHAE/H conditions were determined as 8.7:1 liquid to solid ratio, 58.4 min extraction/hydrodistillation time and 14.2 V/cm voltage gradient. The predicted pectin and essential oil yields at optimum conditions were 16.58 and 3.62 g/100 g lemon waste, respectively. Data analysis showed that all of the independent variables significantly affected the pectin and essential oil yield. In the verification study, close agreement was found between predicted and experimental values. Conventional heating extraction/hydrodistillation (CHE/H) were conducted to evaluate the effectivity of OHAE/H. With OHAE/H process, the yields of the pectin and essential oil were significantly increased when compared to CHE/H. Limonene concentration of the essential oil produced with OHAE/H was higher than the essential oil produced by CHE/H. Results demonstrate that the single-step OHAE/H could be an effective method for simultaneous extraction and hydrodistillation of pectin and essential oils.