A comparison study on production of virgin coconut oil (VCO) assisted centrifugation and chemical with conventional centrifugation method

Abstract

Nowadays virgin coconut oil (VCO) has become popular locally and as export product because of its reported health benefit such as supporting immune system health. The characteristic that sets this VCO apart from oil is its high lauric acid (C12) content. The conventional methods to produce virgin coconut oil (VCO), by using conventional methods, need longer processing time (24 – 48 hours) to break natural o/w coconut milk emulsions. This study investigates comparatively on emulsion demulsification between the centrifugation and combination of centrifugation and chemical demulsification methods. The percentages of water soluble materials used for this experiment were varied from 2, 5 and 7 wt %. These materials are Polyethylene Glycol 6000 (PEG 6000) and Polyethylene Glycol 600 (PEG 600) and they have high influence in demulsification of emulsions. The centrifuge speed was varied from 6000 rpm to 12000 rpm and the separation time was varied from 30 minutes to 105 minutes. The present research found that, centrifugation method with the help of water soluble material can enhance the demulsification of oil-in-water (O/W) coconut milk emulsion in a very short time compared to the conventional methods.