Coconut Palm

HISTORY

The Coconut Palm (Cocos Nucifera) is part of the palm family, and is found usually in sandy soils along the coastlines where salinity in the soil is the norm. They thrive in areas with lots of sunlight, regular rainfall (750 mm to 2000mm annually), and relatively high humidity (70%+ RH average). Though they can grow naturally in a number of locales, the majority of the commercial growth and production is in India and Sri Lanka. They can grow up to 30m in height, and on average produce between 50-100 coconuts a year (per tree) – after the first year of growth to maturity.

Coconuts have historically been a very important food source globally, providing many essential nutrients for numerous populations for thousands of years. Coconuts are highly nutritious, rich in fiber, minerals, and vitamins. In some island locales in the Pacific, inhabitants get over 50% of the nutrients from coconut derived food stuffs, and their belief that coconut is a cure-all for almost all illness has led to become known as the “Tree of Life”.

In addition to be used as a meat, milk, juice, and as a cooking oil, the coconut can also be further processed into a fibrous material, coir. Historically, the coir fiber was used in the boat building industry, as a material to lash (or join) various boat components together. In the Polynesian/Micronesia areas , they used the coir material for building tools, holding together weapons, and with other general construction efforts. It wasn’t until the mid 1950’s that mechanization of the process was really started, with the development of defibering machine/process in India, which greatly increased the amount of material that could efficiently be processed.

PRODUCTS CATEGORIES:

Coconut as a raw material is used mainly for providing sustenance (food and drink), making fiber for a multitude of uses, and then is also used in decorative and curios applications.  The coconuts that you would buy in a grocery store are actually the single seed of coconut palm tree.  Before you see it in the store, it will have already been stripped of its’ hard skin and thick middle layer of fibrous pulp, coir.

Here is a list of common uses and product made from coconut, with additional information provided through the link.

• Coconut as FOOD (meat, milk, juice, oil)
• Coconut as FIBER (ie: COIR)
• Coconut CURIOS

GROWTH AND MANUFACTURING

Coconut palms flower monthly and it takes one year for the fruit to ripen; therefore there are always coconuts in 12 different stages of maturity on the tree at any given time.  When the coconuts do not fall naturally, they are harvested in a cycle, and typically is done on a 45-60 day rotation, with each tree netting 50-100 coconuts a year, or between 7-15 coconuts per harvest.

• Harvesting – either done by gravity (falling), are picked hand, or cut down using a knife.
• Processing – Ripe coconuts are immediately husked to remove the fruit from the seed.  Those that are not yet ripe are left it bask in sun in a single layer on the ground until they become ripe.
• Retting – moisture is added to the coconuts to help dissolve or rot away much of the cellular tissues surrounding the bast fiber bundles, helping the fiber separate from the husk.  This is done naturally with fresh water on the ripe coconuts, and with salt water on the green and unripe coconuts.  This natural retting process takes between 6 months for the ripe coconuts and 10 months for the unripe ones.  Mechanical retting is also employed in high volume operations, and is achieved by crushing the fibers after a short time of soaking, usually around 7-10 days. Dry processing of the unripe ones can also be done, but it only considered suitable for producing mattress fibers.
• Defibering – separating the bristle fibers from the pith and outer skin, which can be done both by hand or mechanically through rotation inside steel drums.  Once cleaned, the fibers are laid loosely in the sun to dry.
• Finishing – depending on the intended use, the finishing process varies.  They can be rolled into loose bundles, hydraulically compacted into denser bundles, baled for spinning into finer yarn, can be woven into twine or matting, or the fibers can be processed with supplemental treatments for other uses (such as sprayed with latex rubber, or heat treated with sulphur

FUTURE USES

As production technology improves in processing capabilities of the coconut material, it appears likely that development will be done in the area of the geotextile material.  As the use of synthetic and non-biodegradable textiles slowly decrease in a relation to the increase in environmental purchasing on a whole, coconut textiles will begin to turn up in street corner shops, again adding value to the natural fiberous material.  Another area of certain development will be in the use of the coconut material in both structural and decorative panel and plywood applications. By veneering thin sheets of the coconut fiber, and laminating one on top of another with a phenolic resin binder, it will prove that the coconut can be efficiently formed into panel products that can then be easily molded into whatever shape or form is desired, and hopefully at a price point where product designers opt for coconut in place of other, less sustainable options.