Raw Sugar Manufacturing Process Extraction of Juice

The milling process may be separated into two steps: 1. 2. The preparation of the cane by breaking down the hard structure and rupturing the cells. The actual grinding of the cane.

Juice extraction is done by crushing the cane between massive rolling rollers. The cane is first prepared for grinding by revolving knives that curt the stalks into chips. Then the cane will be shredded by hammer shredders and finally the juice will be extracted from the sugar cane using heavily grooved crusher rollers. Mills consists of multiple units of three roller combinations though which the crushed canes successively pass. Sprays o water or thin juice will be directed on the blanket of bagasse to aid the extraction of juice and this will help to leach out the sugar. This process is termed imbibition or maceration. The milled juice will be pump to rotary screen filter which filters the juice from solid matters. Then the juice goes to the milled juice tank. Clarification and Purification of Juice

The juice from the mills is acid, turbid and dark-green colored. The clarification process, designed to remove both soluble and insoluble impurities, employs lime and heat as a clarifying agents.The juice from the mixed juice tank goes to the juice scale tank for accounting purposes, then the juice goes to the mixed juice tank where cooled liming is applied into the juice as pretreatment of juice pH level. The mixed juice will be pumped to the vertical heaters. There are thee 6 passes vertical heaters, which uses the exhaust steam from evaporators 3A, 3B and 4 as a source of heat. The heaters utilize the principle of heat exchange to kill bacteria. From the vertical heaters, the mixed juice will be pumped to six 12 passes horizontal heaters for another heating process. The heated mixed juice goes to the flash tank where hot liming is applied for final pH adjustments. The flash tank is used to remove the excess heat and exhaust of the mixed juice. The mixed juice then goes to the weir box where a chemical called flocculent is mixed. Then the clarification stage follows. The mixed juice goes either to the two clarifiers, the trayless and the rapidorr. Clarification process aims to separate the juice from the mud and other impurities. The rapidorr is divided into four compartments that will separate the juice from the mud. The trayless employs the settling method. The outputs of this process are clarified juice and muddy juice. The clarified juice will be screened before evaporation to make sure that there are no impurities present. The muddy juice will be filtered to recover the remaining clear juice. The muddy juice passes through the rotary vacuum filter, where the filtrate juice is recovered and will be pumped back to the mixed juice tank. The waste product is called filter cakes which could be used by the planters as fertilizer. Evaporation

The clarified juice having much the same composition as the raw extracted juice except for the precipitated impurities removed by the lime treatment, contains about 85% water. The vapors of one body can thus boil the juice into the next one. By this system, the steam introduced into the first body does multiple effect evaporation. The vapour from the final body goes to the condenser. An evaporator is made up of two closed spaces, separated from one another by thin metal walls in the form of tubs called the heating surface. Steam enters in one of these spaces at a certain temperature and pressure on which it condenses and thus giving up latent heat. In the other space the juice absorbs the releases heat, thus evaporation of water occurs. Evaporation is the process of removing water from the juice using steam as the source. The clarified juice from the clarified juice tank has to undergo evaporation to evaporate its water content which is about 85% - 90 %. Clarified juice contains natural water from the sugar cane and the water used in the process of imbibition or maceration. Through evaporation, major portion of the water content of the juice will be removed to produce syrup. The evaporation process employs quadruple effect meaning the juice is heated four times to evaporate its water content and to produce highly viscous syrup with the desired brix. Evaporator cells are arranged in series in which he succeeding cell has a higher vacuum and boils at a lower temperature. Exhaust steam from the boiler will be injected to the first cell which would apparently heat the clarified juice from the clarified juice tank up to 112:C maximum for first stage of evaporation. The vapor produced from the first cell shall be used as

the heating medium of cells 2A and 2B, horizontal heaters and vacuum pans. Then the second stage of evaporation in cells 2A and 2B follows using the vapor from the first cell with a maximum heating temperature of 102:C. The resulting vapor from cells 2A and 2B will serve as the heating medium in cells 3A and 3B for third stage of evaporation, and as well as the first and second vertical heaters. The maximum allowable temperature in this stage of evaporation is 88:C - 99:C. Consequently, the vapor from cells 3A and 3B will be used in last cell, cell 4, for the final stage of evaporation. Vacuum is increased and the temperature is lowered at about a maximum temperature of 65:C to aid the final effect of evaporation. The final output which is syrup is pumped into the syrup tank, ready for pan boiling. Condensates from evaporator cells 1, 2A and 2B will be used as boiler feed water and condensates from evaporator cells 3A, 3B and 4 will be delivered to hot water receiving tank for process use. Crystallization or Pan Boiling

The process of crystallization involves the boiling of syrup which takes place in single effect vacuum pans. In this process, it is very important to know the syrup concentration at all times in order to attain the desired brix and purity of the sugar. The function of the vacuum pan is to produce and develop satisfactory sugar crystal from syrup or molasses fed to it. The o o concentration of the products used in the pans is usually 60-65 brix, and may reach 74 brix in refinery work. Graining is initiated by adding sugar slurry which is a mixture of alcohol and refined sugar. The entire process starts in boiling of syrup in Pan #7 called the raw vacuum pan. After the syrup reaches its desired brix, it will be transferred through the cutting line to either Pan #8 or Pan #9, also known as high grade vacuum pans, to maximize its brix. The feeding of syrup in the high grade vacuum pans continues until it attains the desired brix and will be discharge and stored in A-massecuite receiver located below the vacuum pans. Raw sugar and A-molasses are the outputs of Amassecuite. A-molasses will be used by vacuum pans #1, #2and #3 and will be mixed with C-magma, a by-product of Cmassecuite coming from vacuum pans #4, #5 and #6, to produce B-massecuite. The products of B-massecuite are B-magma and B-molasses in which the B-magma will be used to feed Pan #7 and will be mixed with syrup for pre brixing while the B-molasses along with C-seed will be feed to Pans #4, #5, and #6 to produce C-massecuite. The final molasses also known as blackstrap, a product of C-massecuite will be pumped and weighed to final molasses weigh scale for accounting purposes and it will served as a base for cattle feed, production of alcohol, yeast and other products. It is required that the temperature of the vacuum pans must not exceed 70:C. To have a lower temperature, the 3 3 3 volume of C-massecuite strike must be reduced to 32m (graining of 13m + B-molasses of 19m ), and it shall have a purity of 3 3 3 55. For B-massecuite, the strike will be reduced to 34m (C-magma of 15m + A-molasses of 19m ), and must have a purity of 70-72. In January of this year 2012, a new vacuum pan has been installed by the company to create more efficient and automatic way to make low- grade sugar. This vacuum pan is called CVP or Continuous Vacuum Pan. B-molasses and Cseed(which comes from pan 4 & 5) are mixed together in the pan to create C-massecuite. Centrifugation or Purging Centrifugation is a process involving centrifugal force to separate mixtures. Sugar crystals in the massecuite are separated from the molasses due to the centrifugal force exerted by the centrifugal machines, it consists of high-grade that is automatically operated and low-grade which is manually operated centrifugal machine. Massecuites from massecuite receivers will be pumped to the mixers above the baskets and will be fed into revolving machines called centrifugal machines. A mixer is a container with revolving arms bolted to a square shaft to prevent the crystals from settling. Each grade (low and high grade) massecuite centrifugal machines has its own feed mixer. A centrifugal machine is consists of a drum or basket suspended on a spindle that revolves within a metal casing which catches the molasses. The drum or basket has perforated vertical sides lined with a brass wire backing screen about 10 meshes per inch. Inside of which is a perforated sheet brass known as lining. The backing screen permits more rapid drainage of the molasses. The machine revolves through the use of v-belts connected to the motor that revolves at a speed ranging from 1000-2000 revolutions per minute. The perforated lining retains the sugar crystals which maybe wash if desired while the molasses passes through the lining due to the centrifugal force exerted on the basket. When the machine is set in motion, the massecuite will be fed on the machine and the sugar-molasses mixture moves away from the center and rises due to the applied centrifugal force. The massecuite is distributed over the perforated lining and the molasses will be expelled and the sugar crystals will be retained. Sugar crystals may be further purge by spraying the wall of the basket-containing-sugar with a measured amount of water. The purging continues until the sugar crystals are practically free from molasses. Then, the sugar is now ready to be discharge by opening the discharge valve or sometimes called core which is located at the bottom of the machine. Purging of A-massecuite on high grade centrifugal machines yields raw sugar and A-molasses. B-massecuite will be purge on the low grade baskets 1, 2, 3 and yields B-magma and B-molasses. C-massecuite will be purge in baskets 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 and its outputs are final molasses and C-magma.