Microwave assisted extraction process of betalain from dragon fruit and its antioxidant activities

The aim of this research was to optimize the operating parameters in microwave assisted extraction process (MIE) such as temperature, mass of the sample, extraction time on the betalain content from dragon fruit peel using response surface methodology (RSM). Three factors three levels Box-Behnken response surface design (BBD) was used for optimization and mathematical model development. Significant quadratic polynomial model was obtained (R2 = 0.9892 for betalain content) with high coefficient determination value and numerical optimization was employed to achieve optimum conditions which was found to be; temperature of 35 °C, mass of the sample of 20 g, and treatment time of 8 min. Under these conditions, 9 mg/L of betalain content was obtained and it was validated using experimental values.