EphremFrantial IGNALEAMOKO^{1, 2,}, Innocent ZINGA¹, OdilonSylvain NGUEREPENDE³, Christian MALAKA⁴, Gildas DOYEMET⁵, Dimitri Regis Sopke Longue¹, Armand BALLOT¹, Edith Pulchérie SAKO⁶, Mahamodo Sania¹, IGNALEAMOKO Jerry Fulgence⁶, Benjamin SELEKON-YALIBANDA⁴, Alain RomaricKOLA DOLI¹, Bachelard Heraclite KOYANGA-MBALISSA¹, Guy Roland MBAH¹, Simplice Arthur SOMBOT-NDICKY⁷, Boniface KOFFI⁷, Silla Semballa¹, Emmanuel NAKOUME⁴, Angela Eni⁸, Fidele Tiendrebiogo⁸, Justin Pita⁸

Cassava (Manihot esculenta) is a perennial shrub of the Euphorbiaceae family. Thus, the objectives assigned to this study consist of studying the kinetics of retting of fresh tubers of 5 accessions of cassava in collection at Samba at concentration respectively:100.66 mg/kg (ICRA14), 103.33 mg/kg (ICRA51), 134.66 mg/kg (MAMBERE), 135.1 mg/kg (ICRA21) and 144 mg/kg (DOGBO) considered higher than the FAO standard (10 mg/kg), specifically it involves evaluating the concentration of HCN in fresh tubers of five cassava accessions grown in CAR, every 7 hours for 70 hours and observing the variations in HCN levels during the different stages of processing (soaking, fermentation, drying, cooking); Determine the pH every 7 hours for 70 hours in the retting water from this transformation process ;Determine the temperature every 7 hours up to 70 hours in the retting water of this transformation process; Analyze the effectiveness of various traditional transformation methods to reduce the HCN level, Identify if possible the accessions presenting a significant risk due to their residual HCN content after transformation. And provide practical recommendations to improve traditional methods and reduce the exposure of populations to cyanide. Titrimetry was used for the determination of hydrocyanic acid. It is a dosing technique used in analytical chemistry to determine the concentration of a chemical species in solution. It is retained in the context of this work to determine the level of hydrocyanic acid contained in fresh cassava tubers. The results obtained showed respectively the open system (before and after retting): 102.8-142 mg/kg and 19.3-23 mg/kg depending on the HCN content in the tubers of these accessions; the closed system (before and after retting): 103-142 mg/kg and 13.3-18.1 mg/kg. Thus in the cossettes of the open-closed system: 8-9.23mg/kg and 7.7-8.3mg/kg and in the couscous of the open-closed system: 0.25-0.60mg/kg; 0.23-0.48mg/kg. The pH values varied from 3.5-6.01 from retting to the cossettes. The temperature varied from 22°C -26°C for all systems along this retting process. These HCN results obtained in the cossettes as well as the cassava couscous were considered acceptable according to the FAO standard (10mg/kg of HCN in the cossettes) and CODEX (2mg /Kg of HCN) in the cassava couscous. This demonstrates the effectiveness of the improved cassava production diagram implemented in the Central African Republic through this study.

Cassava, Hydrocyanic acid, Titrimetry, Detoxification, Kinetics, Retting