STUDIES IN THE DEPROTEINIZATION POTENTIAL OF COCONUT WATER (COCOS NUCIFERA) NATURAL RUBBER LATEX

Abstract

The use of untreated natural rubber latex for the production of dipped goods has suffered a major setback due to numerous complaints of allergy traced to inherent protein content, a number of conventional treatment substances have been reported such as urea, papain and bromelain. The challenges in the use of these substances range from the cost to environmental problems. The use of coconut water being a natural product as a potential deproteinizing agent in natural rubber latex has therefore been investigated. Amount of coconut water ranging from 0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 and 1.0 % v/v in 1% ammonia preserved latex were analysed. The results obtained showed that coconut water has potential for use as deproteinizing agent as they were reductions in protein content (%) for all samples except for 0.2 and 0.3 v/v which remained indifferent. The most efficient formulation gave a value of 48% reduction in protein content corresponding to 0.5% v/v coconut water in latex. These result suggest that coconut water when properly applied to latex can reduce the protein content by a mechanism suspected to be mechano-chemical arising from centrifugation and enzymatic hydrolysis.