EXTRACTION, PURIFICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF POLYSACCHARIDES FROM PASSION FRUIT PEEL (Passiflora edulis)

The growing demand for sustainable practices and the full use of agro-industrial waste have encouraged the search for bioactive compounds with high added value in materials previously considered disposable. The passion fruit peel (Passiflora edulis), widely generated as a by-product of the food industry, represents a promising source of structural polysaccharides with functional and technological potential. Thus, this work investigates the extraction, purification and characterization of polysaccharides (hemicelluloses) from the peel of this fruit that have not been previously characterized. The peels were manually separated, lyophilized and later delipidified, presenting 9.85% lipids. The delipidified peel was submitted to enzymatic-gravimetric extraction consisting of treatments with amylase, amyloglucosidase and protease, where supernatant and precipitate (FMI) were obtained, containing insoluble dietary fibers. The precipitated fraction (FMI) was subjected to alkaline extraction (4 times) with 10% NaOH + NaBH4 for 2h. The alkaline extracts were neutralized and centrifuged, resulting in a soluble (FMI-KS) and precipitated (FMI-KP) fraction. The analysis of the monosaccharide composition performed in gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) revealed that the FMI-KS fraction consists predominantly of xylose (44.1%), galactose (20.5%), glucose (10.4%), arabinose (8.2%) and uronic acids (6.7%). The size exclusion chromatography (HPSEC) analysis of this fraction indicated a heterogeneous elution profile, suggesting the presence of polysaccharides with different molar masses