Werabe University

College of Natural &Computational Sciences

Department of Chemistry

Chapter Five
Sugar Industries
Course: Industrial Chemistry II(3122)

By:Tesfay S.
Outline

• Sugar Industries

• Sugar production processing from sugar cane

• Manufacture of sucrose from sugar Beet Root

 SUGAR INDUSTRIES
• Sugar is a broad term applied to a large number of carbohydrates present in many plants and
characterized by a more or less sweet taste.

• The primary sugar, glucose, is a product of photosynthesis and occurs in all green plants.

• In most plants, the sugars occur as a mixture that cannot readily be separated into the
components.

• In the sap/juice of some plants, the sugar mixtures are condensed into syrup.

• Juices of sugarcane and sugar beet are rich in pure sucrose, although beet sugar is generally
much less sweet than cane sugar.
 Cont...
• Sugar synthesized in the leaves is used as a source of energy for growth or is sent to the
stalks for storage.

• It is the sweet sap in the stalks that is the source of sugar as we know it.

• Sucrose is a disaccharide that occurs naturally in most fruits and vegetables.

• The Chemical formula for Sucrose is C12H22O11, Molecular weight =342g/mol, and
Density = 1.58 kg/m3.
 Sugar production processing from sugar cane
1. Collecting the Harvest: Mature canes are gathered by a combination of manual and
mechanical methods. The cane is cut at ground level, the leaves are removed, the top is
trimmed off (by cutting off the last mature joint) the canes and transported to a sugar factory.

2. Cleansing and Grinding: The stalks are thoroughly washed and cut at the sugar
mill. After the cleaning process, a machine led by a series of rotating knives, shreds the
cane into pieces. This is known as “grinding”. During grinding, hot water is sprayed onto
the sugar cane to dissolve the remaining hard sugar. The shredded cane is then spread
out on a conveyer belt.
 Cont...
3. Juicing: The shredded sugarcane travels on the conveyor belt through a series of
heavy-duty rollers, which extract juice from the pulp. The pulp that remains, or “bagasse”,
is dried and used as a fuel. The raw juice moves on through the mill to be clarified.

4. Clarifying: Carbon dioxide and milk of lime are added to the liquid sugar mixture,
which is heated until boiling. The process of clarifying begins at this stage. As the carbon
dioxide moves through the liquid, it forms calcium carbonate, which attracts non-sugar
debris (fats, gums and waxes) from the juice, and pulls them away from the sugar juice. The juice
is then pushed through a series of filters to remove any remaining impurities.
 Cont...
5. Evaporation: The clear juice that results from the clarifying process is put under a
vacuum, where the juice boils at a low temperature and the water in it begins to
evaporate. It is heated until it forms into thick, brown syrup.

6. Crystallization: Crystallization is the process of evaporating the water from the

sugar syrup. Pulverized sugar is fed into a sterilized vacuum pan. As the liquid
evaporates, crystals form. The remaining mixture is a thick mass of large crystals.
These crystals are sent to a centrifuge that spins and dries them. The dried product is
raw sugar, which is edible.
 Cont...
7. Refinery: Raw sugar is transported to a cane sugar refinery for the removal of
molasses, minerals and other non-sugars that contaminate it. This is known as the
purification process. Raw sugar is mixed with a solution of sugar and water to loosen
the molasses from the outside of the raw sugar crystals, producing a thick matter
known as “magma”. Large machines then spin the magma, separating the molasses
from the crystals.
 Cont…
The crystals are promptly washed, dissolved and filtered to remove impurities. The
golden syrup that is produced is then sent through filters, and SO2 is passed through it
to remove the color and water. The process of removing color is known as bleaching.
What is left is concentrated, clear syrup which is again fed into a vacuum pan for
evaporation.

8. Separation and packaging: Once the final evaporation and drying process is
done, vibrating screens separate the different- sized sugar crystals. Large and small
crystals are packaged and labeled as white refined sugar. How To Manufacturing Sugar From Sugarcane In Sugar Mill With All Process

2021.mp4
Flow Chart of Manufacture of Sugar from Sugarcane
 Manufacture of sucrose from sugar Beet Root
• Sugar beet, cultivated Beta vulgaris, is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of
sucrose.

• After they are harvested, beets are deliver to a factory.

• The beet sample is checked for:

• Soil tare - the amount of non-beet delivered
• Crown tare - the amount of low-sugar beet delivered
• Sugar content - amount of sucrose in the crop
• Nitrogen content - for recommending future fertilizer use to the
farmer.
1. Diffusion
• The beet roots are washed, mechanically sliced into thin strips called cossettes.
• Diffusers are long vessels of many meters in which the beet slices (portion) go in one
direction while hot water goes in the opposite direction.
• Diffuser extract the sugar content into a water solution.
• The three common designs of diffuser are:
• Horizontal rotating
• Inclined screw
• Vertical screw "Tower“ and moving belt.
 Cont...
• In all cases, the flow rates of cossettes and water are in the ratio of 1:2.
• Cossettes take about 90 minutes to pass through the diffuser, the water only 45 minutes.
• These counter current exchange methods extract more sugar from the cossettes using
less water than if they merely sat in a hot water tank.
• The liquid exiting from the diffuser is called raw juice.
• The color of raw juice varies from black to a dark red depending on the amount of
oxidation.
 2. Carbonation
• Carbonation is a procedure which removes impurities from raw juice before it undergoes
crystallization.

• First, the juice is mixed with hot milk of lime (a suspension of calcium hydroxide in
water).

• This treatment precipitates a number of impurities, including multivalent anions such as

sulfate, phosphate, citrate and oxalate, which precipitate as their calcium salts and large
organic molecules such as proteins, saponins and pectins, which aggregate in the
presence of multivalent cations.
 Cont...
• The alkaline conditions convert the simple sugars, glucose and fructose, along with the
amino acid glutamine, to chemically stable carboxylic acids.

• Carbon dioxide is bubbled through the alkaline sugar solution, precipitating the lime as
calcium carbonate (chalk).

• A recycling process builds up the size of chalk particles and a natural flocculation occurs
where the heavy particles settle out in tanks (clarifiers).

• A final addition of more carbon dioxide precipitates more calcium from solution; this is
filtered off, leaving a cleaner, golden light-brown sugar solution called thin juice.
3. Evaporation
• The thin juice is concentrated via multiple-effect evaporation to make a thick juice.

• Thick juice can be stored in tanks for later processing, reducing the load on the
crystallization plant.

4. Crystallization

• The liquor is concentrated further by boiling under a vacuum in large vessels and
seeded with fine sugar crystals.

• These crystals grow as sugar from the mother liquor forms around them.
 Cont...
• The massecuite (sugar crystal and syrup mix) is passed to a centrifuge, where the High
Green syrup is removed from the massecuite by centrifugal force.

• Water is then sprayed into the centrifuge via a spray bar to wash the sugar crystals which
produces Low Green syrup.

• The high green syrup is fed to a Raw Sugar vacuum pan from which a second batch of
sugar is produced.

• This sugar ("raw") is of lower quality with more color and impurities, and is the main
source of the sugar dissolved again into the mother liquor.
 Cont...
• The syrup from the raw (Low green syrup) is boiled for a long time and sent to
slowly flow around a series about eight crystallizers.

• From this, a very low-quality sugar crystal is produced that is also re-dissolved.

• The syrup separated is molasses, which still contains sugar, but contains too much
impurity to undergo further processing economically.

• The molasses is stored on site and is added to dried beet pulp to make animal feed
some is also sold in bulk tankers.
 Energy economy in the sugar manufacturing process
• Bagasse can be used to generate steam. Steam can be used for electricity generation
which can be used to run machinery in the plant. Additional power can be exported to
household usage and thus save consumption of fuel.

• Bagasse is also used as raw material for paper industries, fertilizer and cattle feed.

• The final mother liquor; molasses is sent for the production of ethyl alcohol by
fermentation process.

• Press mud is used as phosphatic fertilizer in farms.