PENGARUH KECEPATAN PUTAR PENGADUK PROSES PEMECAHAN EMULSI SANTAN BUAH KELAPA MENJADI VIRGIN COCONUT OIL (VCO)

Abstract

Virgin Coconut Oil (VCO), the raw material of food industries, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, can be produced by agitating coconut milk. The purpose of this study were to determine the optimum stirring speed of the stirrer, the optimal stirring time, and the quality of VCO. The device of the experiment was 1000 mL glass beaker equipped with 4 baffles and propeller. This experiment steps are, first take milk coconuts, then it allowed to stand for 1 hour to take the sludge at the top as the emulsion. Next, they stirred with speed variation of 200, 300, 400, 500, and 600 rpm. Samples were taken every 10 minutes. Each sample settled for 12 hours in order to form the VCO. The quality of VCO has analyzed for density, free fatty acid, total fatty acid, saponification number, and refractive index.The results showed that the optimum stirring speed was 300 rpm and optimum stirring time was 70 minutes. The VCO produced has 0.9175 gram/cm3 of density, 0.0412 mg equivalent/gram of free fatty acid, 4.5625 mg equivalent/gram of total fatty acid, 256.12 mg equivalent/mol of saponification number and 1.4487 of refractive index. The relationship between the mass transfer coefficient of oil (k) and Reynolds number (Re) is k = 0.0469 Re0.2110.