The papers presented at the Meeting are listed below, linked to an abstract of the paper. In the future it will be possible to request a copy of each paper while reading the abstract.
#835 Thermal Activity Monitor (TAM) Determination of Amorphous Content in Sucrose
#836 A New Sucrose Meter; Factory and Refinery Application Development
#837 In-Line Monitoring of Sugar in Waste Waters and Condensate
#838 Recent Optimization and Developments of Concentration Measurement by Microwave
#839 Symposium - Filtration [NO ABSTRACTS]
#840 Palatinose, Functional and Natural Sweetener made from Sugar: Its Physiological Properties and Applications
#841 Description of Racecourse Refinery
#842 An Update on Current Research Activities at The Sugar Research Institute
#843 Management and Expert Systems - Online Tools for Sugar Processing
#844 Pinch Technology Explained
#845 Dense Phase Pneumatic Conveying of Refined Sugars
#846 Improving the Efficiency of Carbon/Diatomaceous Earth Filtration Processes in Sugar Refining
#847 Measurements of Heat Transfer Rates in Concentration and Crystallization of Cane Syrups and Molasses and the Phenomenon of "Hard-To-Boil" Massecuites
#848 Selected Raw Sugar R&D Topics of Interest to Refiners
#849 Validating a Crystallisation Model through Sugar Crystals Agglomeration Measurements
#850 Evaluation of Polarity, Hidrophobicity and Charge Nature of Sugar Colourants
#851 Pinch Technology in Use
#852 Engineering - Tools for Optimization in Raw Sugar Refining
#835 THERMAL ACTIVITY MONITOR (TAM) DETERMINATION OF AMORPHOUS CONTENT IN SUCROSE
S.W. Billings and A.H.J. Paterson, Institute of Technology and Engineering, Massey University,Palmerston North, New Zealand
There are two main mechanisms that are proposed to contribute the caking of bulk sucrose during transportation and storage; humidity/temperature gradient moisture movement leading to capillary condensation and liquid bridging and amorphous sucrose rubber bridging and recrystallisation. In order to investigate the contribution from the amorphous sucrose recrystallisation mechanism, it was necessary to determine the levels of amorphous sucrose present in standard grade sugar. A Thermal Analysis Monitor (TAM) was used to detect levels of amorphism down to the 0.1% level, for samples taken from the end of the two rotary drum driers, the bottom of the silo and after the packaging process. The results show that, at the 0.1% level, there is no amorphous sucrose on the product that has been packaged, although the sucrose that exits the primary drier was measured as having a 0.16% amorphous content. This is removed to undetectable levels by the end of the secondary drier. These results indicate that the contribution to the caking of bulk sucrose by the amorphous sucrose recrystallisation mechanism is insignificant.
#836 A NEW SUCROSE METER; FACTORY AND REFINERY APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
Les A. Edye, A. Schultz, Sugar Research Institute, and I. O'Hara and P. Stuart, Mackay Sugar Cane Cooperative, Mackay, Australia
The sucrose meter, a device that can measure sucrose in sugar processing streams has been tested in a number of applications in the raw sugar factory and sugar refinery of the Mackay Sugar Cane Cooperative. During the 2002 harvest, the sucrose meter was used to monitor sucrose concentration in cane juice expressed in the first roller mill and in a stream that cycled between A and B molasses. In early 2003, the sucrose meter was tested in a number of applications in the sugar refinery. This presentation reports on this application development.
#837 IN-LINE MONITORING OF SUGAR IN WASTE WATERS AND CONDENSATE
Peter A. Simpson, New Zealand Sugar Company, Aukland, New Zealand
Two different systems for in-line measurement of trace levels of sugars in water are reviewed. Two refineries with different needs installed in-line instrumentation to monitor trace levels of sugars in waste water and condensate. In Australia a LAR Biomonitor was selected to monitor BOD in cooling water discharged from vacuum pan barometric condensers. The LAR Biomonitor uses biological processes to consume oxygen with activated sludge. Changes in oxygen are detected and a calculated BOD is displayed. In New Zealand a LAR QuickTOC total organic carbon analyser was installed to monitor organic carbon in evaporator and vacuum pan condensate. The LAR QuickTOC uses high temperature oxidation to produce Carbon Dioxide which is detected and displayed as Total Organic Carbon. Both units have proven useful to indicate when there has been an event leading to elevated sugar levels in the water stream. The two units are compared and conclusions drawn about their relative advantages and disadvantages. The basis for the different decisions at the two refineries is reviewed and lessons learnt identified.
#838 RECENT OPTIMIZATION AND DEVELOPMENTS OF CONCENTRATION MEASUREMENT BY MICROWAVE
Karl-Heinz Theisen, Tim Diringer, pro-M-tec Theisen GmbH, Germany
Concentration measurement by microwaves has been established in the sugar industry since 1996. Based on the success and the experience of 6 years as the market leader of microwave concentration measurements pro/M/tec developed the second generation of microwave concentration measurement in the year 2001. In combination with a new sensor design and a powerful temperature compensation the new instrument has proven its ability to be used in more challenging applications such as high temperature evaporators and cooling crystallizers.
The paper sums up results of installations which have been done during the last two years in the sugar factories.
#839 SYMPOSIUM - FILTRATION - No abstracts at this time
#840 PALATINOSE, FUNCTIONAL AND NATURAL SWEETENER MADE FROM SUGAR: ITS PHYSIOLOGICAL PROPERTIES AND APPLICATIONS
Koji Suzuki, Jun Kashimura, Yukie Nagai, Tadashi Ebashi, Shin Mitsui Sugar Co., Ltd., Japan
It is suggested that eating habits affect the incidence of lifestyle-related diseases. In today's drastic changes in our eating habits, the number of patients with lifestyle-related diseases is increasing in the world. Nutritional and physiological studies for preventing lifestyle-related diseases are the great concerns for food manufacturers, especially in the themes related to "sugar and health" as indicated by Glycemic Index. Meanwhile, in the stressful contemporary society, various relaxing methods are being studied. With respect to the issue of overeating and obesity caused by stress, the interrelation between stresses, eating habit and lifestyle-related diseases is also attracting attention.
We are producing Palatinose, a natural disaccharide, from sucrose using the immobilized enzyme reactor. Recent research indicates that the sugar may significantly contribute to the health of people. Palatinose is completely digested and absorbed in the small intestine very slowly at the speed equivalent to 1/5 of that for sucrose. Palatinose, which elevates blood glucose level or insulin level only insignificantly, is considered effective to prevent lifestyle-related diseases. It is also demonstrated that Palatinose doesn't induce diarrhea. In the study of sustainability of concentration/memory after the intake of Palatinose performed based on the scores of Uchida-Kraepelin psychodiagnostic test in healthy volunteers, Palatinose was demonstrated to maintain its effects significantly longer than sucrose. EEG data revealed a-waves, an index showing the degree of relax, was seen at a higher rate after intake of Palatinose than after intake of sucrose.
Based on these findings, it is suggested that Palatinose is a sugar good for mind and body and can be applicable to the development of foods aiming at the promotion of health and prevention of diseases.
#841 DESCRIPTION OF RACECOURSE REFINERY
Paul Stuart, Mackay Sugar Co-Operative Association Ltd., Australia
Racecourse Refinery was commissioned in 1994 following two years of planning and construction. It is annexed to the Racecourse Mill, now part of the Mackay Sugar Co-operative. It was designed to operate on a 48 week, 7 day, 24 hour continuous roster with minimal manning to produce bulk white premium sugar. Unlike many refineries around the world, no packaging is performed at Racecourse Refinery. The operations workforce of around 30 people is made possible with a highly automated factory designed for low maintenance and low lost time. The refinery is operated by Mackay Sugar for Sugar Australia.
This paper describes the operations of the refinery and how it fulfils the strategic aims of Sugar Australia as a premium quality and low cost refinery.
#842 AN UPDATE ON CURRENT RESEARCH ACTIVITIES AT THE SUGAR RESEARCH INSTITUTE
J. Joyce and G. Bullock, Sugar Research Institute, Australia
The Sugar Research Institute is the leading provider of research and development on sugar manufacture in Australia. Recent research activities at the SRI are reviewed. Areas covered in this presentation include computational fluid dynamics modelling of unit processes in sugar manufacture, factory energy efficiency and energy minimisation, cogeneration and related boiler technology and value adding processes and byproducts such as ethanol, organic acids and other compounds from the sugar cane matrix.
#843 MANAGEMENT AND EXPERT SYSTEMS - ONLINE TOOLS FOR SUGAR PROCESSING
B-Christoph Schulze, and Oliver Tzschaetzsch, ESCON GmbH, Germany
The industrial sugar process is based on a large information basis. Nowadays, sugar factories possess computerised information systems like process control systems, laboratory data systems and higher management and information systems, but the knowledge of the factory personnel still has the main influence on the quality of the process performance. To evaluate the actual factory performance, mass and energy balances are conducted, using specialized computer software which is available on the market or is prepared by the process engineers.
A consequent further development is an online system, that combines the available process data like flow rates, pressures, temperatures and analytical parameter (purities, contents of dry substance and sugar, colour and alkalinities) and conducts an online balance. This tool would provide additional information, which can not be shown with common factory systems.
The development of the Expert and Management System is a breakthrough in modern factory operation. The software receives all necessary information and conducts an online balance. A large number of given parameters define the quality of the process performance. If a certain process parameter leaves the given range, a chain of calculations will be released to locate the spot within the technical process, which causes the parameter (temperature, pressure, brix, etc.) to decrease or increase. The operating personnel will be informed by a warning which describes the problem and informs about the reason.
Additionally, several thermodynamically and technologically calculations are conducted, thus real time information about i.e. heat transfer coefficients of evaporators and heat exchangers is always available. A decreasing OHTC will notify the personnel about necessary cleaning steps. Therefore, the Expert and Management System can also be considered as an early warning system (Expert System) and as a result, cleaning costs can be reduced by a wise usage of chemicals only when cleaning periods are necessary.
The introduction of the Expert and Management System into the sugar industry showed a higher flexibility in use of personnel, since a large amount of experience is now available online at the factory process control room.
#844 PINCH TECHNOLOGY EXPLAINED
Phil Thompson, Sugar Knowledge International Ltd, England
Pinch Technology, a rigorous method of examining the supply and demand balance of energy in process plants, is now becoming mature technology but is not well understood or adopted in sugar refining. The paper describes the method and its techniques and its applicability to refining, explaining why it is preferred to less rigorous approaches. A companion poster describes some practical results from applying it in sugar refineries.
Pinch Technology is applied to an entire site, not just to the process itself or to a section of the plant. However, the first stage of an audit is to calculate the theoretical demand for energy in the process as this provides the 100% efficiency model against which to compare the practicality. The techniques then seek to optimise the use of available energy in the various heating duties around the site. The optimisation is done by allocating costs to the energy in different streams.
What may appear to be self-evident but is often forgotten is the need to also apply the method to the supply and demand balance of water as every m³ of water which comes in is heated up and then cooled down again, particularly in a process such as sugar refining where an essentially dry feedstock is used to produce a dry product.
#845 DENSE PHASE PNEUMATIC CONVEYING OF REFINED SUGARS
Jean-Paul Merle, C&H Sugar Co., Inc., Crockett, CA, USA
A novel method of conveying various grades of granulated white sugar was adopted. Instead of a conventional design incorporating scrolls, bucket elevators and other mechanical conveyors, a dense phase pneumatic conveying system was chosen. The system used the Full Line Concept, which is characterized by low airflows of 500 to 600 cfm throughout the conveying cycle and conveying line pressures of 21 to 28 psig. Transported materials vary from 150 to 1500 microns in average size. The product to air ratio is 80% weight on volume. System design, advantages and operating results are discussed.
#846 IMPROVING THE EFFICIENCY OF CARBON/DIATOMACEOUS EARTH FILTRATION PROCESSES IN SUGAR REFINING
Emmanuel M. Sarir,Carbo-UA Limited, Beverly Hills, CA, USA
The utilization of powder carbon (PAC) and diatomaceous earth (DE) is a well-established purification method in sugar refining, with consumption estimates in 2001 of 24 Million pounds of PAC, and 24 Million pounds of DE in the Sugar and Sweetener Markets. While such usage levels certainly solidify PAC/DE filtration as a viable technology in the sugar industry, Carbo-UA has sought methods of optimizing and improving the overall process efficiency of Sugar Refineries currently using PAC/DE filtration. The success criteria for accomplishing this goal were based on the following methods and metrics:
This paper will address each of the above criteria, and the field results observed in the implementation of the Carbo-UA process will be presented as verification of achieving all of these success criteria for sugar refining.
#847 MEASUREMENTS OF HEAT TRANSFER RATES IN CONCENTRATION AND CRYSTALLIZATION OF CANE SYRUPS AND MOLASSES AND THE PHENOMENON OF "HARD-TO-BOIL" MASSECUITES
Michael Saska, Audubon Sugar Institute, LSU Agricultural Center, USA
During the last few years, observations have been reported in Louisiana of occasional time periods when the rate of evaporation and sugar boiling appeared very low, and in extreme cases no sugar could be produced and syrup had to be disposed of by blending with final molasses. Several drums of such refractory A-molasses were collected in October 2002 at a Louisiana mill and studied in extensive testing at ASI. The fully automated operation and data collection system of one of the two pilot vacuum pans at ASI is well suited for measuring boiling heat transfer rates at different dry solids levels, with and without crystals, as a function of various parameter, molasses purity, enzymatic and chemical treatments, additives, etc. Heat transfer rates for standard ("good") A molasses were found to be between 900 to 500 W/m²/C in the 84 to 88% RDS range, those for standard blackstrap molasses between 460 W/m²/C (at 85% RDS) to 140 W/m²/C (at 85% RDS) while those for the refractory A molasses were less than 1/10 of those of a standard material, on the same purity and RDS basis, viz. About 70 (83% RDS) to 50 W/m²/C (85% RDS). As neither the viscosity nor levels of the polysaccharides (starch, dextran) correlate with the observed drastic heat transfer reduction, it is suspected that other yet unidentified component(s), possibly products of microbial or fungal infections during inclement weather are responsible through their effect on the complex interfacial phenomena of nucleate boiling Efforts at identifying the causes of an solutions to this pressing problem are continuing.
#848 SELECTED RAW SUGAR R&D TOPICS OF INTEREST TO REFINERS
P. G. Wright, SRI Associates, Queensland, Australia
This paper presents selected R&D work carried out in the raw sugar industry that may have applicability to sugar refiners. The author has been involved in the selected projects during his lifetime of work with the Sugar Research Institute, the premier Australian raw sugar process research and development provider.
It gives examples of progress in the understanding of and equipment design in the areas of juice evaporation, sugar crystallisation, modelling the incorporation of impurities into sugar crystals, mass/energy modelling of refineries, centrifugals for sugar separation, molasses exhaustion, and raw sugar drying.
Examples are also given of the R&D approach to mathematically model the behaviour of the major processes and operations in sugar technology using purpose-developed computer programs.
Illustrations are made of the use of the rapidly increasing capabilities of computer spreadsheets by using these to model and investigate the complex processes of raw sugar processing and sugar refining.
#849 VALIDATING A CRYSTALLISATION MODEL THROUGH SUGAR CRYSTALS AGGLOMERATION MEASUREMENTS
F. Rocha, S. Feyo de Azevedo, N. Faria, Dep. de Eng. Química, Fac. de Engenharia, Univ. do Porto, Portugal; M.N. Pons, Laboratoire des Sciences du Génie Chimique, CNRS-ENSIC-INPL, Nancy, France
In a previous work, presented on the SIT 2001, an automated method for the morphology classification of sugar crystals through image analysis was proposed. Using this technique, it is possible to quantify, among other parameters, the degree of agglomeration of each crystal in a sample.
In the present work, this technique is used to validate a model for pure white sugar crystallisation in a laboratory batch crystalliser. The validation data includes the on-line measurements of the sugar contents in the solution and the system temperature. The crystal population size distribution and distribution of the degree of agglomeration are used as final validation data.
The model considers crystal growth, nucleation and agglomeration.
#850 EVALUATION OF POLARITY, HIDROPHOBICITY AND CHARGE NATURE OF SUGAR COLOURANTS
Luis San Miguel Bento, CIENTECA, Porto - Portugal
Colour in sugar products is a result of a mixture of a multitude of different visible light absorbing compounds. The knowledge of physico-chemical proprieties of these colourants is important for sugar technologists. Characteristics as polarity, hidrophobicity and charge (PHC) are important for some technological processes as clarification, decolourization and crystallization. Colourants can be fixed to polystyrenic divinyl benzenic ion exchange resins by different mechanisms: ionically to charged fixed ions, or by hydrophobic inter-action to resin matrix. Using resins at different chemical conditions, coloured compounds can be separated according to their PHC nature. This was done to different regeneration efficiency and for all other sugar products and composition of colourants, according to their PHC nature, was evaluated. This information will be important to preview raw sugars behavior through refining process, choose the more appropriate decolourization system, study separation systems, as membranes or chromatography, evaluate resins processes involving sugar colourants transfer, destruction or formation.
#851 PINCH TECHNOLOGY IN USE
Phil Thompson, Sugar Knowledge International Ltd, England
Pinch Technology has been successfully applied to several refineries around the world, identifying ways of reducing energy consumption even when engineering staff have made great progress in optimising the refinery. The basic techniques are described in a companion paper. This poster describes some of the results, selected to demonstrate different aspects of the method.
Example 1 - recovering heat and water from pan vapours
Example 2 - integrating evaporators to supply other heat users
Example 3 - high efficiency heat recovery on a gas fired boiler
It can be seen that Pinch Technology is a useful tool to help optimise a refinery for energy consumption, a cost problem which is likely to increase in significance in the years to come. There is no reason why any refinery should operate at greater than 100% steam on RSO.
#852 ENGINEERING - TOOLS FOR OPTIMIZATION IN RAW SUGAR REFINING
Reinhold Hempelmann, and Mohsen Makina, BMA AG, Braunschweig, Germany
Technological processes require continuous reconsideration and development, priority being given to saving of primary energy and improvement of quality. More optimization means correlations become increasingly complex and can only be looked at in their entirety. The great challenge, therefore, is the preparation of complete mass balances and energy balances, which allow evaluation of the effects the optimizing measures would have.
Ways and means of optimization are described by examples. They can be used the project planning stages such as 1. Concept phase, 2. Design phase, 3. Basic engineering phase.
Detailed engineering phase and can be applied for decision finding purposes.