Drying is a significant step in the production of carrageenan. However, current drying process still deals with too long drying time and carrageenan quality degradation. The foam mat drying is an option to speed up drying process as well as retaining carrageenan quality. In this case, the carrageenan was mixed with egg white (albumin) as foaming agent and methyl cellulose for foam stabilizer. The foam will break the carrageenan gels and creates the porous structure resulting higher surface area for water transfer. This research studied the effect of egg white and methyl cellulose on carrageenan drying at various air temperature, and thickness. As a response, the water content versus time was observed and the drying rate was estimated. Meanwhile, the carrageenan texture was verified by X-RD (X-Ray Diffraction) and TEM (Transmission Electron Microscopy). Results showed that the presence of egg white stablized by methyl cellulose can speed up drying rate as well as retaining the crystalline structure of carrageenan. The higher albumin content, the faster drying rate. However, the addition of albumin and methyl cellulose restricted not more than 30 % in the mixture for keeping carrageenan quality and purity. By adding egg white 20 % and methyl cellulose 10 %, the water diffusion and drying rate can be two fold compared with carrageenan drying without foam. The improvement can be higher at the higher temperature and thinner carrageenan sheets.
Protein concentrate (PC) is a potential solution to address the global protein shortage, with Indonesian shortfin eel being a suitable raw material. This research investigates the impact of ultrasound pretreatment and extraction parameters on the nutritional quality of eel protein concentrate (EPC). The study involved ultrasonic pretreatment at different times and power, and solvent extraction with different solvents, temperature, and solvent-solid-feed-ratio (SSFR). The results showed that the recommended conditions for EPC preparation were a mixture of ethanol-hexane, ultrasonic pretreatment at 250 W for 25 min, extraction temperature and SSFR of 40 °C and 6:1 v/w. The protein content of EPC increased gradually with the increase of SSFR until it reached a ratio of 6:1, further increase in SSFR promoted the development of a pseudo-homogeneous system, leading to a reduction in the solvent-eel flesh contact and the relative velocity between the extracting solvent and eel flesh, and consequently decreased the extraction yield. The prepared EPC is classified as type B EPC, with a protein content of 89.62 %w.b. and a lipid content of 2.21 %w.b. The EPC contains five types of peptides with a molecular weight of 5.00-76.00 kDa, with the main fraction having a MW ranging from 10.00 to 15.00 kDa, indicating potential for functional food products.