Copra - Coconut

47 De Smet plants are processing coconut.

Origin

The coconut palm tree that we find on all tropical coasts may reach 25 to 30 m high.
The trunk is smooth with a diameter of 25 to 30 cm with an enlarged base, and is wreathed with a twenty palm leaves of quill type that can have 3 to 6 m long and 1 m wide. About 10 to 20 leaves grow per year.

The flowers, after pollination, grow in large drupes of ovoid form and each one drupe is composed of a seed, the coconut, and of a fibrous husk (floss) which becomes hard when drying at the approach of the maturity.
The coconut is made of a very hard mesocarp (about 5 mm thick) in which you will find the endosperm of whitish colour and which contains a white sweet liquid called coco milk (very refreshing). When the fruit is mature, nearly all the milk has been transformed into albumen and only a large empty space remains inside the nut.
It is this albumen after appropriate drying that makes the copra.

The coconut tree begins to yield fruit at its sixth year (about 10 nuts per year) and its production is at its maximum at its 15th. year (30 to 40 n/y.).

The fibrous pericarp represents about half of the total weight, the mesocarp about 1/6 to 1/12 and the nut about 1/3 to 1/4. To obtain one ton of copra, we need about 5 to 6.000 coconuts. The production of one hectare (143 coconut trees) is around 5.000 coconuts or equivalent to one ton of copra (usually admitted to 5-800 kgs/hectare).

The preparation of the endosperm in view of oil extraction varies from country to country, but usually it is done on a primitive way. After a manual separation from the fibrous pericarp, the nuts are cut into two to eliminate the milk; they are then dried either by sun exposition or in a rotary drum where they cross the gas from the combustion of the fibres and shells.
The drying method has a large influence on the copra and the copra oil.


Process

After drying to about 7% moisture, the mesocarp separates easily and the pieces of dried endosperm pass in copra cutters in order to reduce the size to pieces of about 15 to 20 mm long.
The pieces are then cracked and milled, heated again to dry them till 4% moisture, flaked and pressed till we obtain a cake containing about 23 to 25% of residual oil.
The cakes are then solvent extracted to obtain a meal with a residual oil content below 1%.
The meal is used as animal feed thanks to its easily assimilated nutritional matters (15-20% of protids, 40% of glucids and 6-10% of lipids).

The extracted meal is often palletised before bagging for transport.
The coconut oil is refined with a dry pretreatment, bleaching and deodorising process.


Composition

The fresh pulp of the coconut contains about 30 to 40% of oil and 50% of water; the copra contains 60 to 65% of oil and 7% of water. The oil represents about 12 to 15% of the total weight of a full nut.

The copra oil contains mainly :

• 5-8% of oleic acid
  
• 15-18% of myristic acid
  
• 45-50% of lauric acid
  
• 4-9% of capric acid
  
• 7-9% of caprilic acid
  
• melting point : 24-26°C
  
• unsaponifiables : 0.15 to 0.5%
  
• iodine value : 8-10
  
• saponification value : 250-265
  
• titer : 20-23°C

It is a non-siccative type of oil, close to the palm kernel oil.


End uses

To sum up, the coconut gives :
- copra oil is used in margarine and soap
- copra stearin is used in cookies and pralines
- copra meal for animal feed
- coconut milk as a refreshing drink
- hull used as combustible
- fibres used to make brush, carpets, ropes, mattress, ...

Copra/Coconut