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ABSTRACTS
# 1 Bio-Refinery Concept: Value-Added Products
for the Sugar Industry
Willem H. Kampen, Professor
Audubon Sugar Instittute,
Louisiana
State University,
Baton Rouge, LA
70803
Sugar
cane can be an economical source of sugars to be processed with new and
existing fermentation technologies into: bioethanol,
industrial ethanol, glycerol, inositol, carbon
dioxide, fiber and/or other valuable products. Increased yields of
sucrose per acre can be obtained by applying betaine.
With new equipment the cane will be processed in an approximately 10 brix fermentation solution and dry, clean fiber. Most of
the fiber will be used to co-generate electricity and steam for the entire
facility. Excess fiber will be sold as a strengthening agent in specialty
cements. By not making sugar, the typical losses on the wash table (5 - 15
lbs/TC). the filter mud (5 - 10 lbs/TC) and
molasses (35 - 45 lbs/TC) do not occur. Return-on-Investment for such a biorefinery is excellent.
#
2 Processing and Conversion of Sugar
Beet Pulp to Value-Added Products
Douglas Van Thorre, President, Biorefining,
Inc.,
Minneapolis, Minnesota, U. S. A.
Investigations
and discoveries over the course of the past four years lead me to developed a
patented manufacturing protocol, the “Thorre
Process,” allows for the economical processing of residual biomass, initially
sugar beet pulp, into value-added bio-chemicals and bio-based industrial
materials that can compete on a cost and function basis with petroleum-based
products.
# 3 Bench Mark for the Cane Sugar
Manufacturing
Chung Chi Chou
Dr. Chou Technologies, Inc., New York, U.
S. A.
In review and discussion of operating data with sugar
technologists around the world over forty countries, it became obvious that
technical performance varied significantly from companies to companies.
Reasons given for poor performance, often not justifiable, are regional in
nature, such as difference in social structure, and culture. In fact the need
for adequate training of operators/ engineers/ chemists in technologies and
mid level supervisors in management, which requires no capital expenditure,
is often over looked. To compete in a global economy it is a must to
establish performance criteria/ benchmark for the purpose of achieving the
lowest cost sugar producers in the world market. This paper will focus on the
discussion of bench marking for the sugar industry.
# 4 Steps to Reach Low Energy
Consumption Figures
Dipl.-Ing. Dieter Schroeder, Managing
Director
IPRO Industrieprojekt
GmbH, Germany
Worldwide,
energy consumption in the beet sugar industry varies between 4,000 and more
than 15,000 MJ/t sugar. Especially in West
Europe the beet sugar industry
has undertaken many efforts in the past years to reduce energy consumption
figures both for processing sugar and for pulp drying. Leading beet sugar
factories nowadays work with a total energy consumption of less than 4,000
MJ/t sugar and require no primary energy for pulp drying (by employing
steam drying).
The paper discusses the development of reduction of
energy consumption especially considering main features and effects of
applied influences on diffusion
with reduced drafts
·
Optimised sugar boiling
processes (with seed magma systems)
·
Wide range condensate use
·
Installation of vapour
recompression for sugar boiling and evaporation
·
Reuse of vapours from
vacuum pans for sugar boiling
·
Thick juice storage
In
the field of pulp drying the development went in two directions (first to
improve the results of mechanical pulp pressing and secondly to develop steam
drying). Especially steam drying has big influences on the electric energy
economy of beet sugar factories. Furthermore, steam drying can also influence
the degree of freedom of developing energy savings in the technological line.
The
paper shows in brief and in main figures
· The Development
§
Possibilities
§
and Necessary Installations to Obtain Low Energy Consumption Figures.
# 5 White and Refined
Sugar Production from Cane Sugar Factory
Chung
Chi Chou, Dr. Chou Technologies, Inc., New York, U. S. A.
Khalid Iqbal, Y. G.
Min, D. W. Gao and Emmanuel Duffaut,
formerly
Research scientists/ Engineers, Sugar Processing
Research Institute, U.
S. A.
Due
to the uncertainty in the government’s sugar program and the threat of global
competition, the US domestic sugar industry
is under pressure to develop a new strategy for the new millennium. One of the potential solution
is to produce white sugar directly from sugar mills with minimal / nominal
capital cost. With this vision in
mind, the SAT process was developed at Sugar Processing Research Institute
under the direction of its former managing director, Dr. Chung Chi Chou.
For
the cane sugar industry, sugar is extracted from sugar cane, processed to
produce raw sugar in a sugar factory and then further purified to refined
white sugar in a sugar refinery.
However, beet sugar does not require a two-stage process to achieve
white sugar in a beet sugar factory.
By studying the basic differences in the nature of colorants and various
composition of sugar streams from both sugar cane
and sugar beet, the SAT process is developed successfully to produce white
sugar using clarified juice from sugar mills with color ranging from 80 to
150 ICUMSA.
In
this paper, the SAT process itself, the principle behind the process and its
benefit to sugar mills will be presented.
# 6 Cane Separation -
Is It a Valid Alternate Approach for Processing Sugar Cane?
Helmut
Bourzutschky, Cane and Beet Technology Consultants,
Germany
More than 40 years ago the technique of splitting
sugar cane stalks longitudinally and removing the interior pith cells
developed, yielding in three basic components of the sugar cane stalk: pith,
rind and dermax, the waxy outside layer of the cane
stalk.
Years of engineering achieved the development of
soundly functioning Cane Separator Machines, which are today available up to
2.000 t/d capacity.
Subsequent modifications of processing
technologies or the selection of different technologies were required either
for handling the juice extracted from the pith or utilizing the rind and
removed dermax.
With regards to extracting juice from pith alone
the quality and composition of this juice improved significantly from
conventional mill/diffuser juices. Cane Separation could, therefore, also be considered as mechanical pre-clarification, achieving
purity rises of more than 5 purity points before the actual clarification
steps. Consequently clarification, concentration and crystallization change
allowing the recovery of sucrose and invert sugar present in the juice as one
(combined) product in a liquid or solid form.
Various options exist for utilizing the rind
fraction as it is or after further extraction of the low quality juice from
it. Direct use as fuel or compound utilization with a preceding pyrolytic process for charcoal and gas production, create
an additional marketable product (charcoal) and the fuel source (gas) for the
complete sugar and non-sugar process.
Extracted pith becomes available as a very clean
product (originating from the cane interior only) and could ultimately become
a source for human dietary fiber or is more conventionally usable as animal
feed or fuel.
Yields in terms of total sugar recovery compare
favorably with conventional operations, increasing the revenue potential of
sugar cane from different marketable products beyond revenue from sugar
alone. Ultimately food and non-food products are available.
Direct processing, utilization of modern
processing technologies, simple and straight-line operations reduce energy
demands to the 30%-range, which is the reason for the availability of raw
material for additional commercial products.
Being a newly developed technique/technology Cane
Separation so far is only developed/available (but not limited) for small
scale operations up to 2.000 t/d making it an ideal operation for niche
productions for high quality products from sugar cane such as organic sugar.
# 7 Recent
Advances in SMB Chromatographic Technology
James Ma, President
Paracon Separation Technology, Inc., U. S. A.
A new process is developed to eliminate major deficiencies
of chromatography by overhauling the mass transfer mechanism in traditional
column process and exhibiting tremendous economic efficiencies in cutting
back the separation cost through substantial reduction of separation cycle
time. The advance of economic benefits compared with SMB shows in areas of
consuming much less resin stock (about 50% cutback), eliminating the
displacement zone, preventing product dilution, and obtaining ultimate
separation in pure form.
These broad and generalized separation methods are initialized from the
mathematical modeling of pack bed operation to ratify the long recognized
native deficiencies in chromatographic practice. The new process by passes
engineering drawbacks of column operation to allow flow dynamics, such as major
concerns of chromatography in axial dispersion, diffusion, velocity
distribution, column end-effects, and loading limitation, all of which become
irrelevant to the process design. This new process is further demonstrated
through understanding the mass transfer mechanism between two phases in
chromatography and ratified through HFCS separation to demonstrate the unique
effectiveness of the process. The results validate what are claimed by
obtaining pure form of fructose and glucose in concentration exceeding
50%D.S., yet, consume about 43%of resin that SMB can obtain 90/10 purity in
about 35% D.S. It demonstrates the new process is capable of controlling the
separation parameters in stead of the separation efficiencies are dominated
by the separation process observed in chromatography. The process is capable
of operating in a batch mode and/or continuous mode and both having same
separation efficiencies. In conclusion, this is all about a simple concept
behind the name of Paracon process as claimed that the
process is controlling the separation parameters, which has been long
deteriorating the separation results in chromatography.
# 8 Ion Exchange, Membrane Purification
and Chromatography:
Contribution of these Unit Operations of Separation to the Progress of the
Sugar Industry.
Xavier Lancrenon, Director of Process and Sales
Applexion, France.
Ion exchange has been used in the Sugar Industry since a very long time and
has greatly contributed to the development of the Liquid Sugar Industry, as
well as the modern Sugar Refining Industry.
Chromatography of impure sugar solutions such as molasses or intermediate
Mother Liquors and Syrups is a new way to increase significantly the sugar
recovery of a Sugar Factory, or to reduce the consumption of Chemicals
when the production of Liquid Sugars from Intermediate Liquors is
considered.
Membrane
Purification is just starting to be used in the Sugar Industry,
and it is bringing to the Cane Sugar Industry the Hope of producing Quality
Sugars for direct Market Use without any necessary additional Refining.
# 9 Nano-Technology
for Quantum Jump in Sugar Yield
Chung Chi Chou, Dr. Chou Technologies,
Inc., Da-Wei Gao,
formerly Professor of
South China
University of Technology, China.
.
Sugar production relies on crystallization to recover
sucrose after clarification / decolorization. However, the process becomes not economical
when the molasses purity is reduced to be less then 40. As a result, about 6 to 10% of incoming
sucrose in cane juice remain in final molasses.
There
are technologies available to increase the extraction of sucrose. The chromatographic process (SMB) will
separate the non-sucrose from sucrose before crystallization and dramatically
improve the sucrose yield. However,
the capital cost of SMB is economically prohibitive. Non sucrose can also be separated from
sucrose using UF / Nano cross-flow membrane process
to significantly increase sucrose recovery at a fraction of the capital cost
of SMB processes.
This
paper will discuss the promising results of process developmental work in the
application of UF / Nano cross membrane
technologies for quantum jump in sugar yield.
#
10 Dynamic Simulation of Pan Boiling
Operations
Michael Callan, Energy and
Sugar Refining Specialist
Miley
Company Limited - Toronto, Canada.
The
batch nature of most refinery boiling schemes and the following
centrifugation stage, the plant specific equipment layout and connection
scheme and the various boiling schemes (including specialty boilings) chosen by each refinery for their market
combine to add a complexity to deciding the best operating choices.
Considerable time on shift is typically required to appreciate the nuances
involved in good decision making for pan floor operations.
Consider
the following questions, which are difficult to resolve even for experienced
personnel:
·
While meeting the plant’s throughput requirement can a more optimum
scheduling of pans yield benefits for Steam and Power operations?
·
What will be the real economic effect of additional centrifugal
machine capacity on operations?
·
A larger fine liquor storage tank is proposed but how large is
sufficient?
·
Can pans be automatically scheduled and can this be demonstrated as
feasible in advance?
These
issues and more can benefit from a study of a dynamic model of the
operations. Such a model was developed for the complex boiling scheme
required at a new Far East refinery and used to establish/confirm equipment sizing and
connection requirements and to develop and test advanced control strategies
and scheduling.
This
paper will discuss this development work and subsequent work on a more
generalized software framework to allow technical staff to construct, run,
and modify their own dynamic simulations of existing, planned or modified
physical plant arrangements.
# 11 World Sugar Supply and Demand
Margaret Blamberg, Consulting
Economist,
formerly Vice
President of Economic Research, Tate & Lyle North America.
This presentation will examine past and current
trends in sugar supply and demand on the world market, as well as
highlighting those factors that may influence the supply/demand outlook in
the future.
For many years supply and demand grew in tandem,
but more recently the market has moved into a chronic oversupply
situation. The presentation will
examine the economic and political dynamics that have led to this
development.
Production in both beet and cane producing regions
will be addressed, as well as demand in a variety of important
countries. The European Union’s sugar
regime will be examined and that of the US will be addressed briefly
as well. However, the main thrust of
the survey will be the major cane producers and/or exporters such as Brazil, Cuba, Australia and Mexico.
#
12 Seven Years of Successful Process
Development / Improvement Projects
Jamal Al Ghurair & G.C.Singh
AL
KHALEEJ Sugar,
Dubai, U. A. E.
Al Khaleej
Sugar (AKS) is the first stand alone sugar refinery to operate in the Middle
East / Gulf Market.
Commissioned in 1995 with initial capacity of 700,000 tons per year
the refinery has since been enhanced to 1,200,000 tons per year. AKS refinery
uses conventional refining process including carbonation and granular carbon decolourisation . Operation is based on modern process control concept
using DCS with few operators and also have innovative plant applications
including continuous vertical pans for all white massecuites .
AKS policy has been of
continuous improvement through technical advancements and always exploring
for new opportunities still available to continually reduce costs and improve
efficiencies.
During the last seven
years of operation, number of process development projects were taken and
after successful operation of these projects, reduction in manufacturing cost
has been around 25 % and
enhancement in production capacity
by 50 % without adding any equipment
in Decolourisation (GAC Columns) , Heat
Exchangers, Evaporators , Pans , Condensers , Centrifugals , Driers , Steam
and Power Generation Sections.
The
major projects for process development / improvement taken are the following:
1.
Use of VHP / VLC sugar to
eliminate affination section.
2.
Optimization of
Carbonation Process
3.
Improvement in Vacuum
System
4.
Co-generation
5.
Optimization of Water
Consumption
6.
Optimization of Electrical
Power Consumption
7.
Optimization of Steam Consumption
8.
Capacity expansion by
modification and relocation of existing equipment
9.
Modification in Boiling
Schemes
10. More effective use of
by-products
11. Environmental issues
This paper reviews the above projects taken up at
AKS for process improvement and enhancing the processing capacity from 100 to
150 tons of Melt per hour with maximization of efficiencies, reduced
processing costs, high labor productivity and due compliance with
environmental requirements.
#
13 Recent Optimization and
Developments of Concentration Measurement by Microwaves
Karl-Heinz
Theisen, Tim Diringer, Klemens Senkowski
pro-M-tec Theisen
GmbH, Germany.
Concentration measurement by microwaves has
been established in the sugar industry since 1996. Based on the success and
experience of 5 years as the market leader of microwave concentration
measurements pro/M/tec
installed the first applications of a second instrument generation in the
year 2001.
The experience of the last campaign showed
that the new instruments is more sensitive and able
to cover up to 80 Bx with only one calibration
line.
Moreover extensive work has been done on the
optimisation of the measurement for cooling crystallizers by finding
solutions for an individual temperature compensation which can be adapted to
the different Bx and temperature ranges within the
cooling crystallization.
#
14 Application of Neural Network
Technology for Sugar Processing
Margaret A Nemeth, Chief Statistician, Monsanto
Company,
Chung Chi Chou, President, Dr. Chou Technologies,
Inc. U. S. A.
A
Neural Network attempts to simulate the learning capability of the human
brain. The network consists of a set
of connections which map several input variables to an output variable. The mapping uses a non-linear transfer function
which connects various “learning” layers in the network. Neural networks, which have applications in
a large number of fields, can be used as alternatives to regression modeling
and classification. In the sugar
industry they can be used to model the relationship between different process
inputs and an output. This paper,
which discusses one such process situation – white sugar granulators,
delineates the advantages and disadvantages of using neural net modeling
instead of classical regression/optimization procedures.
# 15 Detection of Super Saturation by
Ultrasound
Zdenek Bubnik, Vladimir Pour, Helena Starhova, Andrea Hinkova and Pavel Kadlec
Institute of Chemical Technology Prague, Czech Republic.
Control
of cooling crystallisation according to optimised cooling curve requires
knowledge of metastable zone width. In case of
technical sucrose solution this quantity changes depending on composition of
present impurities, which is important particularly for the newly introduced
crystallisation process of raw juice. That is why is necessary to prove and
eventually even newly to determine the metastable
zone during whole sugar campaign.
The paper deals with
application of Low Intensity Ultrasonic Technique for metastable
zone width measurement and for dry solids determination during the cooling
sugar crystallisation. The device LiquiSonicLab of firm Senzotech Magdeburg, Germany, was applied for this reason.
The
metastable zone width was measured for pure sucrose
solutions and for concentrated raw juice. Temperature was controlled by a
computer system Control Panel according to a course, which was calculated and
simulated in advance. Value of the upper margin of the metastable
zone for pure sucrose solution was obtained with accuracy + 1 °C
and for technical sugar juice +1 to +2.5 °C. This accuracy is
sufficient for a control of an industrial process.
The ultrasonic method was also successfully used for the
concentration measurement of pure and technical sugar solutions. As a main
result a new two parametric equation - dependence of sound velocity on
temperature and concentration - was derived for raw sugar juice.
The results obtained
during the campaigns 1999 - 2001 confirmed, that the ultrasonic method is
suitable for nucleation parameters determination and further for dry solids
determination as well.
# 16 Antioxidant
Properties of Sugarcane Products
Chung
Chi Chou, Dr. Chou Technologies, Inc. USA
Michael. Saska, ASI, Louisiana State
University, USA
Recent research has
demonstrated relationship between the aging process and the damaging effects
of free radicals on tissue cells, and the beneficial impact on blood plasma
antioxidant capacity of the increased daily intake of antioxidant-rich foods.
The Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) method to quantify the
antioxidant property was developed at USDA several years ago, and has since
then been used to rank (ORAC units/100 g) common foods. Prunes (5,770),
raisins (2,830), and blueberries (2,400) top the list, trailed by such health
food industry favorites as kale (1,770), spinach (1,260) and brussels sprouts (980). In this work, the ORAC analysis
was performed on a series of sugarcane products, with the results ranging
from some 5000 (ORAC units/100g DS) to over 35,000, indicating strong antioxidant
properties, comparable, if not superior, to those previously reported for the
top-antioxidant-rich fruits.
# 17 The Behavior of Invert Sugar in Processing
of Sugars
Jianmei Yu, Food Research Center, Agriculture and
Agri-Food Canada, Canada
Michael
Saska, ASI, Louisiana State
University, U. S. A.
Chung-Chi Chou, Visiting Professor, South China
University of Technology, China.
Alkaline degradation of pure invert and invert in
refining materials including washed sugar liquor, melt liquor and affination syrup has been investigated. The
pseudo-first-order reaction kinetics of invert alkaline degradation was
demonstrated for a pH range of 9.0 - 11.0 and a temperature range of 70 - 90 oC. In
this range, rate constants of invert degradation increased 5
to 6
times with one unit increase in pH.
The effects of pH and temperature on rate constants were quantified
and could be expressed as: log k =
19.42 - 6712/T - 0.712pOH. Rate
constants of invert alkaline degradation at different pH-temperature-base combinations
calculated by this equation are very close to experimental data, but are
significantly different from the rate constants calculated from Vukov’s equation: logk =
16.9 - 5260/T - pOH. Activation energy of invert alkaline
degradation was 30.95 kcal/mol and was found to be pH independent when Ca(OH)2 suspension was used as a base. Activation energy changed with pH when NaOH and KOH solutions were used. Under constant pH and temperature, the rate
constant increased 0.004 min-1 or about 12% with 10% increase in
sucrose concentration.
The second-order polynomial correlation between
the production of lactic acid and the concentration of invert degraded was
obtained. The correlation between
color formation and invert concentration was also second-order
polynomial. Ca 2+ favored
the formation of lactic acid and inhibited the formation of color under the
experimental conditions.
The effects of sucrose on the rate constant of
invert degradation and the formation of lactic acid were explained by the effect
of sucrose concentration on the behavior of pH electrode.
The study of invert
degradation of washed sugar liquor in a laboratory continuous carbonation
system demonstrated that, if the operation conditions were proper and well controlled, the efficiency of the operation evaluated by decolorization, decalcification and filterability of
carbonation would not be influenced by invert destruction. The experiments of invert degradation in
melt liquor and affination syrup demonstrated that
the dose of lime had significant effect on the efficiency of carbonation. The
destruction of invert in affination syrup is very
costly because a considerable amount of lime is needed and a large amount of
cake is produced.
# 18 Ecosorb Fine
Particle Adsorbents
George Jasovsky
Graver Technologies, Inc., U.
S. A.
This
paper discusses the advantages of using fine particle adsorbents / resins in
a precoat mode. It is well known that the rate of
adsorption increases as the particle size of the adsorbent decreases. The equation
that describes the effect is:
Rate
= 1/D^2 where
D is particle diameter.
Obviously
even a relatively small decrease in particle diameter can have a large impact
on the adsorption rate.
Most
fine particle adsorption processes are conducted in batch systems. Unfortunately equilibrium conditions are
achieved preventing maximum utilization of the adsorbent. Ecosorb
adsorbents allow the use of fine particles in a dynamic non – equilibrium
system maximizing adsorbent efficiency and rate. Data will be presented demonstrating the
benefits in the production of liquid sugar.
# 19 New Food Based Product Development in the
Sugar Industries
Ray
T. Burke, Jr.
Quality
Manager, Brasseler USA
The
application of sugar as a bulk sweetener has long been considered a commodity
item. The industrial sweetener and retail packaged or grocery sugars market
is characterized as highly competitive both between refiners and often times
other non-sucrose bulk sweeteners where cost is usually the deciding factor
for choice. While the industrial bulk and grocery market will remain the core
business for most refiners, there is a definite opportunity to produce an
array of value added food based products from sugar. These products can be
categorized in the following manner:
- A food
product with a physical characteristic that has been uniquely modified.
- A food
product with a characteristic flavor.
- A
delivery mechanism for another food additive or flavor.
- A food
product where sucrose has been modified to create a new property.
# 20 Carbonate Cake
for Sludge Conditioning
Cora
Dones, International Consultant, formerly
laboratory administrator
Washington Suburban Sanitary
Commission, Maryland, U. S. A.
The
carbonate cake produced as by-products of decolorization
process used by many sugar refineries serves as an excellent conditioner for biosolids (sludge) that will be applied to agricultural
property
This
beneficial re-use of a product that would otherwise be disposed of in a
landfill provides a positive economic and environmental impact on both the
sugar and wastewater treatment industries.
A
primary goal of biosolids treatment within the United States is to “dispose” of the
driest possible material that meets Federal requirements.
The
use of Carbonate cake as a biosolids conditioner,
replaces the ferric chloride, pickle liquor, alum, or polymer (four possible biosolids additives used to enhance dewatering) have the
benefit of not lowering the pH of the biosolids,
while serving as an excellent flocculating material.
This
paper will present data comparison for total solids using ferric chloride and
calcium carbonate.
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