Production of ?-Carotene Food Colorant from Empty Fruit Bunches (EFB)

• Main Author: Anshori, Mustofa
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Subjects: Teknik (Rekayasa, enjinering dan kegiatan berkaitan)
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/38639
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Public awareness of the importance of natural food coloring is increasing. ? - carotene is one of the food dye that can give yellow, orange, and red color in food. ?- carotene can be produced from various sources, such as carrots, yellow squash, empty fruit bunches (EFB), and others. Indonesia is the largest producer of palm oil in the world, so the production of EFB also overflow. EFB is a by-product of palm oil processing which still contains ?-carotene. In addition, the EFB stored several days will be overgrown with fungi. The fungi will cause the color of the EFB to be orange which be expected also contains ?-carotene. The aim of this study is determine the effect of fungi that grows in EFB with ?-carotene yield. The experiment was performed by soxhlet extraction method using n-hexane, ethanol, and isopropyl alcohol solvents at the boiling points of each solvent. The mass ratio of EFB to solvent is 1:60 (w/v). In the first stage, the variations carried out were the size of the EFB pieces (1 cm, 8 cm, and 15 cm) and the variation of the solvent. The second stage is the variation of shelf life of EFB (day 2 to day 18) to determine the effect of fungi on EFB in ?-carotene extraction.. The concentration of ?- carotene was analyzed using a spectrophotometer at a wavelength of 450 nm. The experimental results showed that the optimum condition of ?-carotene extraction from EFB was using n-hexane solvent with a size of 1 cm EFB, the average concentration of ?-carotene from EFB, EFB with fungi, and EFB which had dead fungi are 2,27 ppm, 3,08 ppm and 1,87 ppm. The results of the experiment also proved that the fungus that grew on EFB had a significant effect on the ?-carotene extraction. The highest yield of ?- carotene extraction is 0,18 mg ?-karoten/g EFB which is obtained from EFB with fungi.