Sugar Industry
Sugar Industry
The sugar industry in India is based on sugarcane which is a heavy, low value, weight losing, and perishable raw material. Sugarcane cannot be stored for as long as the loss of sucrose content is inevitable. Besides, it cannot be transported over long distances because any increase in transportation cost would raise the cost of production and the sugarcane may dry up on the way. It is estimated that 50 percent cost of production is accounted for by sugarcane alone.
SUGAR BEET SOWING AND HARVEST
After the beet is sown in spring, it is harvested from September, having soaked up around 180 days of sunshine. The beet is usually stored at the edge of the field in beet clamps until it is collected.
BEET RECEIVING AND EXTRACTION
Lorries transport the beet to the sugar plant, unloading it in the plant’s beet yard. The beet is then carried by conveyor belt to a washing facility. Slicer machines in the plant cut the beet into thin cossettes, from which hot water extracts the sugar in diffusion towers, creating a sugar solution: the raw juice. The spent beet pulp is used in the production of animal feed.
JUICE PURIFICATION AND EVAPORATION
The non-sugar substances in the raw juice are separated during juice purification with the help of calcium carbonate and carbon dioxide. After being filtered twice, there remains a clear, pale-yellow clarified juice with a sugar content of sixteen percent. The evaporation plant extracts water from the clarified juice in several stages until the sugar content reaches about seventy percent in the form of a thick juice.
MILLING
Milling is a process of crushing the sticks of sugarcane to extract the juice. The shredded cane is fed through a series of crushing mills to extract the sugar-rich juice. consists of three roller mills connected in series like a top roller, feed roller, discharge roller. These used to extract the juice from crushing sticks. To make the mill process more efficient, the poor juices of the subsequent are reprocessed and hot water is applied in the last milling to increase the extraction.
CLARIFICATION
In clarification process sludge, mud, suspended and colloidal particles are removes by some chemical compounds. Raw cane juice is filled in clarifier (conical shape vessel) where phosphoric acid, lime and sulphur dioxide are mixed with the help of agitator. When these chemicals are mixed, suspended and colloidal particles are collected in flock and resulting settled down. Neat and clean juice comes out from the upper section of clarifier, sludge and mud are collect in bottom and drainage to rotary filter.
FILTERATION
Clarified mud from the clarifier further filtered in the rotary filter. Mud and sludge are stick on the periphery of the rotating drum by the action of suction. Solid cake removes from the drum by a doctor blade.
CRYSTALLISATION
This thick, golden-brown juice is then further concentrated in the boiling station. At a certain concentration, sugar crystals begin to form. A thick pulp, known as magma, forms a mixture of crystals and syrup. This massecuite is drained into mash tuns to cool.
CENTRIFUGATION
The massecuite flows from the mash tuns into the centrifuges, where the crystals are separated from the syrup by centrifugal force. The sugar is now white. If this sugar is now dissolved and allowed to crystallise again, a particularly pure and high-quality sugar is formed – refined sugar. The centrifugation leaves behind a thick syrup-like product – molasses. Molasses is used in the production of animal feed and as a raw material in the production of yeast and alcohol.
STORING AND PREPARING VARIETIES OF SUGAR
The finished sugar is dried, cooled, and transported to silos where it is stored temporarily. To meet customer requirements, the sugar is sieved and then sold loose or as packaged goods.
