INTERESTERIFICATION FOR INCREASING MCT (MEDIUM-CHAIN TRIGLYCERIDES) CONTENT IN COCONUT OIL

• Main Author: Yusuf Akbar, Ghiffari
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/67595
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

The productivity of coconut plantations in Indonesia have great potential for the local food industry. MCT content in coconut oil is relatively high, which is around 15%. This makes coconut oil potential to be used as raw material for MCT. The high MCT levels in coconut oil can be enriched through the interesterification reaction. In this study, interesterification was carried out to increase MCT content in coconut oil. The interesterification reaction used acetonitrile as a solvent and potassium methylate as a catalyst for chemical interesterification. Enzymatic interesterification in this research is using Lipozyme TL IM enzyme as a catalyst. The chemical interesterification in this research is varying the reaction time (6 and 9 hours) and the amount of solvent (oil : solvent variation of 1:3 and 1:4). Meanwhile, the enzymatic interesterification in this research is varying the reaction time (15 and 30 hour) and the temperature of reaction (60 and 75°C). Analysis of the reaction products includes analysis of yield, saponification number, and fatty acid composition. The results of this study certainly show that the increase of solid fat fraction (separable solids) has not shown an increase of saponification number and composition of MCFA (fatty acids for the manufacture of MCTs) of liquid oil fraction. The best variation in this study is the enzymatic interesterification reaction with temperature variation at 60°C and 30 hours reaction time. This variation can increase the MCTs composition in liquid oil fraction by 0.92% with the oil saponification number of 260.1 mg KOH/g oil.