Optimisation of pre-treatment conditions for plantain (Musa parasidiaca) flour using Box-Behnken design

The demand for plantain flour has increased in recent years due to its health benefits and industrial applications. Information on the optimum processing conditions to produce plantain flour of good quality is scarce. This study investigated the effects of pre-treatment on some quality attributes of unripe plantain flour. Response surface methodology (RSM) based on Box-Behnken design was used to optimise the pre-treatment conditions: blanching temperature (50-70 °C), blanching time (5-10 min) and potassium metabisulphite concentration (PMC) (1-2%). The functional and pasting properties of the plantain flour were determined using standard laboratory procedures. Data collected were subjected to analysis of variance, while RSM based on Box-Behnken design was used for response surface and regression analysis. Result of functional and proximate composition showed that pre-treatment significantly (P < 0.05) affected the parameters. The bulk density, water absorption capacity, swelling power, solubility index and dispersibility values ranged from 0.65-0.71 g/ml, 124.67-160.25%, 32.56-44.32%, 4.32-5.99% and 58-70%, respectively. The moisture content, crude fibre, values ranged from 8.61-11.70% and 2.23-3.59%, respectively. The optimum pre-treatment conditions for unripe plantain flour with a desirability of 0.870 were a blanching temperature of 50 °C, a blanching time of 6.447 min and 1% PMC. The coefficient of determination (R2) for the quadratic models developed ranged between 0.64 and 0.99 and these high values indicates a good fit between predicted values and the experimental data points.