Background:
Worldwide, alkaline extraction followed by acid precipitation or ultrafiltration method for preparation of protein isolates from oilseeds cakes/meals is followed. The strong alkaline and acidic conditions alters the functional properties of the protein, which adversely affects its quality. Technology Details:
The invention gives a solution to strong acid used during the course of protein isolate production. The invention consists a microbial process in which microbes’ produces mild acids through natural fermentation utilizing the extracted substrate (sugars and minerals or added nutrients) of the supernatant. The advantages of the process are: • The claimed microbial process is unique as it does not require any added acid in order to precipitate the protein. Hence, maintains almost native quality of protein with similar yield of protein as reported by alkali extraction and acid precipitation method. • The method is convertible into purely chemical free process by extracting the protein using potable water (neutral pH) and precipitation by the said microbial culture with limited yield of protein but of superior quality. • The un-precipitated protein present in the supernatant produced during the course of precipitation of protein using microbial culture can be recovered by ultra-filtration of suitable pore size. Since, this supernatant had very low solids content, hence minimizes the problem of frequent membrane fouling caused due to higher solids content in supernatant during protein isolate production by membrane processing. • Minimizes the cost of production as completely eliminating the use of added Acid. • Ease of operation as once inoculated, the supernatant obtained after precipitation of proteins contains microbial cells in sufficient quantity and can be used (in specified quantity) to precipitate another batch. • Minimizes the cost of production of protein hydrolysate as in single step, the claimed process can precipitate and hydrolyse the protein. At present for production of protein hydrolysates, first protein is isolated by acid precipitation and then inoculated with pure enzyme to get desired level of hydrolysis. The claimed process eliminate the use of pure enzymes thus reduces significant amount of cost. It avoids one extra step in the course of protein hydrolysate production.