Loss of oil in hulling tung fruit in the field and at the mill

Abstract

SummaryMethods for analyzing commercial tung hulls for oil have been developed. Samples of tung hulls from mill and field hulling operations have been collected and analyzed. The loss of oil when the fruit are hulled was found to vary from 0.6% to 7.3% with an average loss of 2.7% based on the total amount of oil in the fruit. The difference in the loss of oil between grove and mill hulling was not significant. With a loss of 2.7% of the oil in hulling, a recovery of 87.9% oil on the hulled nuts would be equivalent to a recovery of 85.5% oil on the whole fruit.