Evaluation of treatments to reduce hardness of Agave americana core

Abstract

Agave americana contains inulin as storage carbohydrate. Therefore, agave is interesting to be used for the extraction of inulin by pressing. The yield of the process is low due to the high hardness of the core. The objective of this work was to evaluate pretreatments to reduce the hardness in the process of obtaining inulin by pressing. Treatments with water, sulphuric acid 1 \% (by mass) or sodium hydroxide 1 \% (by mass) were tested and optimized. The pretreatment of the core of A. americana with sulphuric acid 1 \% allowed the reduction of hardness from 30 000 g to 2000 g of breaking force. The mathematical model obtained predicts an optimum processing at 84 degrees C during 75 min. The treatment with sulphuric acid 1 \% also allows white core of A. americana to be obtained, while the other treatments provide yellow core. These results open a good alternative to obtain value added products from this resource.