MRI AND NMR SPECTROSCOPY STUDY OF POST-HARVEST MATURING COCONUT

摘要

The coconut (Cocos nucifera) is a major agricultural product of many tropical regions of the world. It is consumed both in the green stage (where the coconut water provides an excellent refreshing beverage) and in the mature stage (when the fibrous, fatty pulp is the product of interest). Dried coconut pulp is used for the extraction of its oil which is then used for nutritional, cosmetic and other purposes. Despite its economic importance and its convenient size for MRI studies in clinical MR systems, only very few MRI studies on coconuts can be found in the literature. In both cases, only images obtained on mature coconuts were published. Furthermore, only cursory remarks on the structure and contrasting behaviour of the pulp layer in coconuts can be found in Ref. 1, and no study of the post-harvest maturation process on one coconut is known to us.