ABSTRACT
This research was conducted to determine the yield, physical characteristics and phytochemical composition of cassava leaf protein concentrate and bagasse obtained from three locations in Benin City. The leaves used for this study were gotten from Ekenhuan, Isihor and Ugbowo and the process of extraction used is the heat coagulation method. After extraction, the leaf protein concentrate and bagasse yields from the different locations were determined and then screened and analyzed for some phytochemicals, after which data gotten was subjected to analysis of variance and the means separated with Duncan's multiple range test. The yield for Cassava LPC obtained showed that Ugbowo had a lower yield than Ekenhuan and Isihor while it had the highest yield of bagasse than the other two locations. Regarding physical characteristics, the Cassava LPC showed a uniform colour and texture before drying. However, after drying, the colour was seen to vary although the texture did not. With respect to phytochemicals, the presence of some phytochemicals in the LPC and bagasse were determined qualitatively and quantitatively, according to the latter, alkaloids, saponins, phenols, flavonoids and tannins were seen to be present in the bagasse and LPC from the three locations. Quantitatively, the leaf protein concentrate and bagasse from the three locations were analyzed for alkaloids, saponins, phenols, flavonoids, tannins, steroids and oxalic acid, the results for the LPC showed that the amount of flavonoids, tannins and oxalic acid from the three locations were almost the same while for the rest (alkaloids, saponins, phenols and steroids), Isihor had the least amount of the phytochemicals with the exception of saponins and Ekenhuan, the highest in terms of alkaloids and steroids. For the bagasse, the amount of the phytochemicals varied between all the locations and the bagasse from Isihor still had the lowest amount of all the phytochemicals analyzed while that of Ekenhuan, the highest with the exception of alkaloids, although the difference with that of the foremost is not considered significant (p<0.05). The results from this study show that yield, physical characteristics and phytochemical composition of both Cassava leaf protein concentrate and bagasse can be affected by location
