Characterization of Jamaican agro-industrial wastes. Part I: characterization of amino acids using HPLC: pre-column derivatization with phenylisothiocyanate.

Jamaican agro-industries generate large quantities of wastes, which are either discarded or under-utilized. In order to evaluate the possible utilization of these wastes, it is necessary that the profiles of the major biochemical groups be developed. This paper describes the determination of the amino acid composition of coffee, citrus, and rum distillery wastes using a reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography method. Acid hydrolysates of the wastes are derivatized with phenylisothiocyanate. They are analyzed as their phenylthiocarbamyl derivatives and determined quantitatively using norleucine as the internal standard. The presence of all the 17 amino acids investigated, nine of which include those essential for animal nutrition, are observed in the samples investigated, suggesting a high quality of protein with implications in the formulation of animal feeds.