2.6.1. Effect of moisture content
To study the effect of moisture content on citric acid production, different sets of banana peels were steamed with water for different periods to get different moisture content ranging from 50–90%. A portion of steamed material was dried at 105 C for a constant weight. The weight of the dried material was recorded and the percentage of moisture was calculated (Ellaiah et al., 2002). The moisture content favoring maximum citric acid production was followed for subsequent experiments.