Aqueous Extraction of Coconut Oil by an Enzyme-Assisted Process

A pre-extraction enzyme treatment of copra meal was incorporated into a rural wet copra oil extraction process to investigate the possibility of improving the traditional process by the enzyme treatment. The enzymes used in the study were combinations of a protease from Aspergillus niger, a cellulase/hemicellulase preparation from Trichoderma reseei, and α-amylase from A oryzae and a pectinase from A niger (all were crude preparations). Finely milled copra meal samples were mixed with water and the enzymes and incubated at 37°C for 6 h or more. After the treatment, the meal was extracted using a water flotation technique. Yield increases of about 50%, relative to experimental controls, were observed, suggesting the possibility of using the enzyme-assisted oil extraction methods to improve upon traditional copra processing.