Ong Lu Ki, Zakarias Danujatmiko, Aylianawati, Yohanes Sudaryanto
Gelatin has been widely used in the food and pharmaceutical industries, e.g. as clarifier, thickener, emulsifier as well as foaming agent. Most commercial gelatins are produced from cow bone and skin as well as pig bone and skin. In the future this might become a serious problem because of the increasing demand of beef bone and skin for food as well as the "un-halal" aspect of "pig" gelatin. This condition reflects the need of study to produce gelatin from other sources such as shrimp shell waste. Shrimp shell consists of 25-40% protein, where the protein itself comprises of 60-75% collagen that can be converted to gelatin. Generally, gelatin is made through 3 steps, i.e. preparation of the raw material, demineralization and extraction. This research was aimed to study the effects of HCl solution concentration in the demineralization step, as well as the extraction temperature and extraction time to the yield of gelatin. Fourier Transform Infra Red (FTIR) was used to confirm the presence of gelatin in the final product. The results showed that the highest yield (32,1%) was produced using 9% HCl solution in the demineralization step, as well as the extraction temperature of 70°C and the extraction time of 3 hours in the extraction step. The characterization using FTIR shows that the gelatine produced from shrimp shell has the fungsional group of O-H (3600 cm-1), C-H (2970 cm-1), C=O (1690 cm-1) and secondary N=H (1540 cm-1) which are similar to the commercial gelatine made from cow skin. Various tests were also conducted, including moisture content (=14%), ash content (=10, 2%), protein content (=75, 8%), pH (=5), melting point (=32, 1°C), viscosity (=2, 8 cP) and Bloom gel strength (=76, 9 g). The results indicate the high quality of the produced gelatin, which is similar to commercial gelatin. Therefore, the use of shrimp shell waste as raw material in the gelatin production is quite potential. © 2006-2014 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN).
Chemical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Widya Mandala Catholic University Surabaya Jalan Kalijudan, Surabaya, Indonesia