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The Sugar Process
Cane Process |
GPTSB applies strict quality control measures, highly-skilled personnel and up-to-date machines, processes and systems in milling cane and refining raw sugar to ensure our finished products are of the finest grade and quality.
Processing Sugar Cane
Sugar cane, a giant grass, thrives in warm, moist climates and stores sugar, or sucrose, in its stalk. There are various species, including saccharum officinarum and saccharum spontaneum. |
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Some Process Factors to Think Over
There are several important aspects to extraction that involve the energy balance of the factory, the efficiency of extraction and therefore, ultimately, the profitability of operations:
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The manager needs to process the cane as soon as possible if sugar losses are to be avoided, yet needs to have a sufficient supply in storage for times when cutting and transport are stopped, whether deliberately or not. Typically, sugar cane is processed within 24 hours of cutting. |
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Cane preparation is critical to good sugar extraction, particularly with the diffusion extraction process. This is achieved with rotating knives and sometimes, hammer mills called "shredders". Shredding, however, requires extra energy and more equipment. |
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Extraction is actually conducted as a counter-current process using fresh hot water at one end pumped in the opposite direction to the cane. The more water used, the more sugar is extracted, but this causes the mixed juice to become more diluted, hence more energy is required to evaporate the juice. |
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The more accurately mills are set (adjusted), the drier the residual fibre, and hence, there’s less sugar remaining in the fibre. |
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The extracted mixed juice typically contains perhaps 12% sugar. The residual fibre, called bagasse, contains 1-2% sugar, 50% moisture and some sand and grit from the field known as "ash" or filter cake. |
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A typical sugar cane stalk might contain 12-14% fibre which, with 50% moisture content, gives about 25 to 30 tonnes of bagasse per 100 tonnes of cane or 10 tonnes of sugar. |
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