Bromelain is a protease that has multiple applications in food industry. This study focused on the partial purification of bromelain from pineapple crown using the three‐phase partitioning (TPP) method. Different parameters of TPP (ratio of crude extract to t‐butanol (v/v), percentage of (NH4)2SO4, and pH) were optimized for the concentration and purification of bromelain. The optimized parameters of the TPP system, that is, 1.0:0.5 crude extract to t‐butanol ratio at pH 7.0 with 70% (NH4)2SO4 saturation, gave significantly high purification fold of 3.4 (p‐value ≤.000) with a significant increase in percent enzyme activity recovery of 244% (p‐value ≤.000). The purified enzyme was predominantly partitioned at the interfacial phase and the molecular weight of bromelain was found to be around 26 kDa. Characterization of bromelain demonstrated the highest relative activity at pH 7.0 and 35°C. This study showed the effective and economical process development of bromelain purification from pineapple waste at laboratory scale using the TPP method.
Novelty impact statement
The current study reported the purification of industrially important enzyme Bromelain using three‐phase partitioning (TPP) method, which has not been previously studied. TPP method was effectively used as a single, scalable, non‐chromatographic method for bromelain purification from crown waste of pineapple. The optimized parameters (70% (NH4)2SO4 saturation with 1.0:0.5 ratio of crude extract to t‐butanol at pH 7.0), resulted in the purification fold of 3.4 with a recovery of 244%.