Classifications

• • C—CHEMISTRY; METALLURGY
  • C13—SUGAR INDUSTRY
  • C13B—PRODUCTION OF SUCROSE; APPARATUS SPECIALLY ADAPTED THEREFOR
  • C13B20/00—Purification of sugar juices
  • C13B20/16—Purification of sugar juices by physical means, e.g. osmosis or filtration
  • C13B20/165—Purification of sugar juices by physical means, e.g. osmosis or filtration using membranes, e.g. osmosis, ultrafiltration

Definitions

• the present invention relates to a method of simultaneously clarifying and decolorizing sugarcane juice using Ultrafiltration membrane.
• crystallized sucrose commonly called SUGAR is manufactured from the sugar cane juice.
• the quality of sugar produced from sugarcane juice depends on the quality of sugarcane juice and the process of producing the sugar from such cane juice.
• the sugarcane juice is known to contain coloured impurities such as naturally occurring pigment materials including chlorophyll, anthocyanins, and flavones which impart colour to the sugar produced from such juice making it unacceptable. Further, the sugarcane juice especially the mill mixed juice often contain very fine particles such as bagacillo, which make the juice turbid that also affect the crystallization of sugar during the sugar manufacture. Therefore, the sugarcane juice should be fractionated to remove both the colored and suspended impurities to improve the quality of sugar manufactured from such juice. Conventionally, sugar is manufactured by raw sugar process and refinery process. In the production of raw sugar, the sugarcane stalks are chopped into small pieces, which are crushed to obtain cane juice leaving behind t he fibrous material c ailed bagasse.
• T he e xtracted j uice i s t hen clarified in part by screening and in part by precipitation and flocculation by heat and addition of lime.
• sulfur dioxide is bubbled through the juice resulting in a bleaching effect.
• the clarified juice after precipitation is then thermally concentrated to produce sugar syrup.
• the syrup is subjected to crystallization to precipitate sugar crystals. This slurry is centrifuged to separate sugar.
• the raw sugar manufacturing process followed by refining produce high- quality white refined cane sugar with a polarization of about 99.40% to 99.90%. It is a two step process which is employed even in locations where there is a sugar refinery near or even within a sugar mill.
• the raw sugar manufacturing processes include double sulfitation, carbonation, phosphoflotation etc which use chemicals like sulfur dioxide, activated carbon, phosphoric acid, the residual traces of such chemicals shall be present in the sugar manufactured by such a process causing health hazards. Further, such processes use high temperature which causes inversion of cane sugar resulting in considerable loss of sugar. Also, the sugar refinery is a technologically sophisticated operation that employs equipment and numerous chemicals in order to produce refined sugar.
• US Patent No. US5252350 describes a process for clarifying raw juice in which the proportion of solids in the retentate circuit of an ultrafiltration or microfiltration device is sharply increased during the starting time. With the increasing proportion of solids, the filtration yield falls off sharply and then increases again to a value which is higher than the starting value. On reaching the maximum possible filtration yield value, the proportion of solids and thereby also the filtration yield is maintained constant by regulating the amount of retentate outflow or the amount of fresh juice to be fed in. In this way the filtration yield can be significantly improved.
• US6228178 describes a method for producing white sugar wherein nanofiltration is used to decolorize sugar juice or syrup.
• the resulting permeate may be used directly to crystallize white sugar without an intermediate step of producing a raw sugar, even though the color of the permeate is substantially higher than the highest color that is acceptable in a conventionally decolorized syrup used to crystallize white sugar.
• Significant cost savings are thus achieved in producing white sugar.
• membrane technology reported therein suffers from the disadvantage that the clogging of membrane takes place due to bagicillo and waxes which requires clarification before decolourisation of sugarcane juice.
• the object of the present invention is to provide a method of simultaneous decolourisation and clarification of sugarcane juice at ambient temperature using a specific Flat Membrane Module.
• the present invention provides a method for simultaneous clarification and decolourisation of sugarcane juice at ambient temperature without use of any chemicals for any purpose to alter characteristics of input sugar cane juice using a fiat membrane module ultrafiltration configuration.
• the method comprises the steps of extracting cane juice from cane stock, storing the extracted juice in a container to facilitate steady flow, pumping the stored sugarcane juice into specific ultrafiltration configuration of flat membrane module ultrafilter at a predetermined pressure and at ambient temperature, adjusting the pressure within the specific ultrafiltration configuration of Flat Membrane module to fetch optimum flow of refined cane sugar.
• the refined juice is collected through permeate port and the rejected stream of sugarcane juice is collected through reject port of the module,.
• Particulate matter, colloidal particles, starch, dextrans, natural coloring material like chlorophyll, anthocyanins, and flavones and compounds responsible for viscosity, ash and colour development such as hydroxyl methyl-furfurals, dextrans, ketosylamines and the like are removed by passing the sugarcane juice through the flat membrane module at predetermined conditions.
• This ultrafiltration process simultaneously removes all the suspended and some of the dissolved contaminants.
• the sugarcane juice clarified and decolourised by this inventive method shall be used directly for the manufacture of sugar without further refinement processes. Therefore, this process completely eliminates the need for conventional clarification prior to decolourisation of sugarcane juice.
• this method eliminates the use of chemicals including lime, sulfur, and phosphoric acid, which are used traditionally by sugar industries for clarification.
• this method is carried out (at) an ambient temperature unlike existing methods in which the sugarcane juice is heated resulting *in loss of some portion of sugar due to its inversion.
• the flat membrane ultrafiltration m odule u sed in this m ethod is e asy to clean and also it facilitates reviving the original flow rate of juice over and over again which is not possible with other membranes known in the art.
• This inventive method using flat membrane module does not require separators, ion exchangers and the like methodologies which are more complicated. Therefore, this method using flat membrane module is simpler and more convenient. Further as it brings about two results in one single shot, which was hitherto not possible. It eliminates extra material handling, extra process time and extra labor. Thus it is much an advantageous method than all of the existing methods.
• the present invention provides a method for simultaneous clarification and decolourisation of sugarcane juice using a flat membrane module configuration.
• the process for simultaneous clarification and decolourisation of sugarcane juice using flat membrane module configuration includes the steps of Extracting cane juice from cane stock,
• sugarcane juice from cane stock is done by imbibing the primarily crushed cane stalks (Primary juice) by warm water at about 50 degree centigrade to extract further more secondary cane juice to recover residual sugar (Secondary juice) from the same.
• the mixed juice (MJ) is then pumped into the flat membrane module ultrafilter at a predetermined pressure and temperature in order to maintain the flow rate of through said ultrafilter membrane.
• the pressure to pump sugarcane juice into the membrane is around one bar at an ambient temperature ranging from 20 to 50 degrees Celsius.
• the pressure in the membrane is maintained between 2 to 3 bars.
• the flat membrane module used in the method is a Rochem flat membrane module.
• the molecular weight cut off characteristics of the membranes used in the module used in this invention is 8000 to 20000 with the material of membrane construction being anyone of Polyacrylonitrile (PAN); Polysulfone (PS) and Polyamide (PA).
• PAN Polyacrylonitrile
• PS Polysulfone
• PA Polyamide
• the flat membrane module is a patented module; US patent no. 6,165,361 that shows the description and working of the module.
• An apparatus including the flat membrane module configuration ultrafilter (1) for carrying out simultaneous clarification and decolourisation of sugarcane juice comprises a reservoir (2) for the input mixed juice flow, a pump (3) for juice intake and pressure, a control valve (4) for controlling the flow of juice into the flat membrane module (1 ), a pressure gauge (5) for monitoring the input pressure, a separate port (7) for collecting the rejected stream and an outlet (8) for collecting the permeate juice.
• the sugarcane juice was extracted by milling sugarcane stalks.
• the milled cane juice (MJ) was screened by the traditional means.
• the extracted cane juice i.e. Mixed Juice (MJ) is stored in a container on continuous stirring to facilitate steady withdrawal and passed through the flat membrane module at a pressure of 2 to 3 bar and at ambient temperature 20 to 50 degree Celsius continuously.
• the flow rate was adjusted by control valve (4) to 1000 liters per hour.
• the refined stream collected through the outlet (8) was analysed for turbidity and colour parameters.
• the comparison of initial and resultant colour values for the mixed juice and clarified sugarcane juice (CLJ) shows a surprising reduction in turbidity and colour.
• Table 1 shows the parameters of the mixed juice before clarification and decolourisation and table 2 shows the physical and chemical parameters after clarification and decolourisation.

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• Chemical & Material Sciences (AREA)
• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Water Supply & Treatment (AREA)
• Life Sciences & Earth Sciences (AREA)
• Biochemistry (AREA)
• Organic Chemistry (AREA)
• Separation Using Semi-Permeable Membranes (AREA)
• Non-Alcoholic Beverages (AREA)

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Citations (6)

• 2004
  • 2004-01-22 WO PCT/IN2004/000015 patent/WO2004073414A2/en active Application Filing
  • 2004-01-22 BR BRPI0406483-6B1A patent/BRPI0406483B1/pt not_active IP Right Cessation
• 2005
  • 2005-07-19 EC EC2005005922A patent/ECSP055922A/es unknown

Patent Citations (6)

Non-Patent Citations (1)

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