Ma.Adeliza F.

Mortalla Liming

BSChE-4

OJT

April 18, 2012

Hydrated lime is essential to the production of sugar from both sugar cane and sugar beets. It is also used to purify sugar from other sources, such as maple or sorghum, although these are produced in much smaller quantities. Sugar cane and sugar beets are harvested and processed with water to form raw juice, which has low pH and contains dissolved impurities. The juice from the mills, a dark green color, is acid and turbid. The clarification (or defecation) process is designed to remove both soluble and insoluble impurities (such as sand, soil, and ground rock) that have not been removed by preliminary screening. The process employs lime and heat as the clarifying agents. Hydrated lime (milk of lime) is added to the juice to raise the pH and to react with the impurities to form insoluble calcium organic compounds that can be removed. Milk of lime (about one pound per ton of cane) neutralizes the natural acidity of the juice, forming insoluble lime salts. Heating the lime juice to boiling coagulates the albumin and some of the fats, waxes, and gums, and the precipitate formed entraps suspended solids as well as the minute particles. Excess lime is removed by carbonation or by the addition of phosphoric acid. This process may be repeated several times depending on the purity of final product required. Clarification The cane juice, as delivered from the milling train, contains some soil and other undesirable impurities. To remove these juices is heated and lime is added to settle the unwanted material. The impurities settle out in the clarifier and then go to the rotary vacuum filters, which filter out any remaining juice. The filter mud from the vacuum filters is rich in nutrients and is recycled back to cane fields. Clear amber coloured clarified juice containing about 15% sugar is decanted from the clarifiers to the evaporators. Evaporation The mixed juice from extraction is preheated prior to liming so that the clarification is optimal. The milk of lime, calcium hydroxide or Ca(OH)2, is metered into the juice to hold the required ratio and the limed juice enters a gravitational settling tank: a clarifier. The juice travels through the clarifier at a very low superficial velocity so that the solids settle out and clear juice exits. The mud from the clarifier still contains valuable sugar so it is filtered on rotary vacuum filters where the residual juice is

extracted and the mud can be washed before discharge, producing sweet water. The juice and the sweet water are returned to process. The clear juice has probably only 15% sugar content but saturated sugar liquor, required before crystallization can occur, is close to 80% sugar content. Evaporation in a steam heated multiple effect evaporator is the best way of approaching the saturated condition because low pressure water vapors can be produced for heating duties elsewhere in the factory. The evaporator sets the steam consumption of the factory and is designed to match the energy balance of the entire site: the manager wants to avoid burning auxiliary fuel and equally wants to avoid paying to dispose of surplus bagasse. The greater the number of effects, the less steam is required to drive the first effect. Each subsequent effect is heated by the vapor from the previous effect so has to be operated at a lower temperature and therefore lower pressure. Pan Boiling Physical chemistry assists with sugar purification during the crystallization process because there is a natural tendency for the sugar crystals to form as pure sucrose, rejecting the non-sugars. Thus, when the sugar crystals are grown in the mother liquor they tend to be pure and the mother liquor becomes more impure. Most remaining non-sugar in the product is contained in the coating of mother liquor left on the crystals The mother liquor still contains valuable sugar of course so the crystallization is repeated several times. However non-sugars inhibit the crystallization. This is particularly true of other sugars such as glucose and fructose which are the breakdown products of sucrose. Each subsequent step therefore becomes more difficult until one reaches a point where it is no longer viable to continue. The crystallization step itself - a "boiling" - takes place in a vacuum pan: a large closed kettle with steam heated pipes. [In practice the heating is done with a low pressure water vapor from the evaporator.] Some modern pans are continuous flow devices but most are batch devices which go through a discrete cycle and are then emptied for a new boiling. A typical cycle might be 4 hours long. The mixture of crystals and mother liquor from a boiling, called the "massecuite", is dropped into a receiving tank called a crystallizer where it is cooled down and the crystals continue to grow. This also releases the pan for a new boiling. From the crystallizer the massecuite is fed to the centrifuges. In a raw sugar factory it is normal to conduct three boilings. The first or "A" boiling produces the best sugar which is sent to store. The "B" boiling takes longer and the retention time in the crystallizer is also longer if a reasonable crystal size is to be achieved. Some factories re-melt the B sugar to provide part of the A boiling feedstock, others use the crystals as seed for the A boilings and others mix the B sugar with the A sugar for sale. The "C" boiling takes proportionally longer than the B boiling and considerably longer to crystallize. The sugar is usually used as seed for B boilings and the rest is re-melted.

Crystallization Crystallization is the next step in the manufacture of sugar. Crystallization takes place in a single-stage vacuum pan. The syrup is evaporated until saturated with sugar. As soon as the saturation point has been exceeded, small grains of sugar are added to the pan, or "strike." These small grains, called seed, serve as nuclei for the formation of sugar crystals. (Seed grain is formed by adding 56 ounces [1,600 grams] of white sugar into the bowl of a slurry machine and mixing with 3.3 parts of a liquid mixture: 70 percent methylated spirit and 30 percent glycerine. The machine runs at 200 RPM for 15 hours.) Additional syrup is added to the strike and evaporated so that the original crystals that were formed are allowed to grow in size. The growth of the crystals continues until the pan is full. When sucrose concentration reaches the desired level, the dense mixture of syrup and sugar crystals, called massecuite, is discharged into large containers known as crystallizers. Crystallization continues in the crystallizers as the massecuite is slowly stirred and cooled. Massecuite from the mixers is allowed to flow into centrifugals, where the thick syrup, or molasses, is separated from the raw sugar by centrifugal force. Centrifugation The high-speed centrifugal action used to separate the massecuite into raw sugar crystals and molasses is done in revolving machines called centrifugals. A centrifugal machine has a cylindrical basket suspended on a spindle, with perforated sides lined with wire cloth, inside which are metal sheets containing 400 to 600 perforations per square inch. The basket revolves at speeds from 1,000 to 1,800 RPM. The raw sugar is retained in the centrifuge basket because the perforated lining retains the sugar crystals. The mother liquor, or molasses, passes through the lining (due to the centrifugal force exerted). The final molasses (blackstrap molasses) containing sucrose, reducing sugars, organic nonsugars, ash, and water, is sent to large storage tanks. Once the sugar is centrifuged, it is "cut down" and sent to a granulator for drying. In some countries, sugarcane is processed in small factories without the use of centrifuges, and a dark-brown product (non-centrifugal sugar) is produced. References: http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Sugar.html http://www.tullysugar.com/production-process http://www.sucrose.com/evaprate.html http://www.graymont.com/applications_sugar.shtml