Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1 DE
The degree of esterification is the percentage of acid that reacts with alcohol to form
esters. Suwoto et al. (2017) reported that the degree of esterification determines the properties
of pectin, especially solubility and gel formation as well as the application of pectin. In this
study there was no significant difference between the DE of the UAE pectin method and the
conventional method, namely 44.35% and 48.56%. The DE value obtained in this study was
classified in the low methoxyl pectin (LMP) category. Pectin with low methoxyl means the
formation of a gel from the pectin produced due to the presence of polyvalent cations
(Jong et al., 2023b)
. All the pectin obtained in this study was LMP with a DE of <50%, which shows
that durian rind pectin can be used as a gelling agent and stabilizer in the production of low-
calorie foods and beverages. Mineral acids were proven to be more suitable for extracting
durian rind pectin than organic acids, thereby extracting LMP with satisfactory yields.
The value of the degree of pectin esterification is influenced by several factors such as
temperature and extraction time. High temperatures during the extraction process cause
degradation of the methyl ester groups in pectin to carboxyl acids in the presence of acid. The
acid used in pectin extraction will hydrolyze hydrogen bonds. Suwoto et al. (2017) reported
that the glycosidic bonds of pectin methyl ester groups tend to be hydrolyzed to produce
galacturonic acid. If extraction is carried out for too long, the pectin will turn into pectic acid,
the galacturonic acid of which is free from metal ester groups.