Bioprocessing of coconuts for value added product development

The coconut palm alone is said to be sufficient to build, rig and freight a ship
with food, water, oil, vinegar, sugar and other commodities. The research
work for the thesis entitled “Bioprocessing of coconuts for value added
product development” deals with diversification and value addition to
coconut products such as virgin coconut oil, coconut milk and coconut protein
powder. Tray drying was found to be most suitable in moisture removal from
fresh coconut gratings for the production of virgin coconut oil. The optimum
moisture content of fresh coconut gratings for expelling virgin coconut oil was
determined and found to be in the range of 2 – 5% (w/w). Enzyme assisted
extraction of oil from copra gratings was found to yield higher quantity of oil
using hydraulic press. Stabilization studies of coconut milk were carried out
using silica nanoparticles and compared to that with conventional additives.
High stability with added advantage of low viscosity enables silica
nanoparticles to be a potential coconut milk stabilizer. An improved
enzymatic process was developed for the production of virgin coconut oil
which consists of only a single centrifugation step without the need of
overnight cold storage. Membrane filtration and dehydration methods were
optimized to convert coconut skim milk, which is generally discarded as
waste, into coconut skim milk powder, a product with good sensory and
functional properties. A value added product namely, coconut protein powder
was recovered from coconut wet processing waste with high protein content.
Storage studies of coconut protein powder indicated that its shelf life was
about 6 months under ambient conditions (27 ± 1°C, 65% RH) when
metalized polyester is used as the packaging material.