Raw Sugar Processing

Raw Sugar Processing or Production Department is the department who is in charge

of the extracted juice that is from the milling station. The mixed juice then undergoes
variable stages of heating, clarifying and centrifuging to be able to produce sugar
crystals. The Raw Sugar processing comprises of five (5) stages to attain or maximize
the production of raw sugar appropriate to its milled cane. The five stages are as
follows:

1. Extraction

2. Clarification and filtration

3. Evaporation

4. Crystallisation

5. Centrifugation/purging

These stages of the raw sugar process will be discussed more on the next topics of
this report.

Extraction
The extraction of juice from cane constitutes the first stage of the entire process of
cane manufacture, wherein the object of separation of juice from the fibrous portion
of the cane is accomplished by employing heavy machinery like pusher rolls, roller
mills, shredder and cane cutters.

The milling process may be separated into two steps:

1. The preparation of the cane by breaking down the hard structure and rupturing
the cells.

2. The actual grinding of the cane.

Weighing of cane is the first step in the preparation of cane and is essential for
accounting purposes. The cane then passes through several cane levellers, kickers,
cutters and shredder so that it can be reduced to smallest available length needed for
extraction. The shredder cane then goes to the set of rollers of mill 1 that is use to
extract the juice from the shredded cane. The juice then goes to the RSF (Rotary
Screen Filter)to filter the bagasse that is carried in the juice. The screened juice is
passed on the mixed juice tank where it then goes to the next stage which is
clarification. The wet bagasse on the other hand, goes to the next four (4) mills by an
intermediate carrier for further extraction. Also, some of the juices of mills 3, 4, and 5
are pumped back to mills 1, 2, and 3 to be used in extracting the shredded cane.
Maceration and imbibition processes are also made in between of mills to increase
the efficiency of extraction of the mills. The bagasse on the 5th mill is then carried to
the boiler by a bagasse elevator.

Clarification and filtration

The raw juice is turbid and contains undesirable impurities which have to be
eliminated so that the concentrated clear juice or syrup is suitable for sucrose
crystallisation in the vacuum pans from which raw sugar is produced. Thus, the
treatment on the clarification process is essential for impurities may be a hindrance in
crystallisation of sucrose. Several chemicals are introduced in the clarification stage
to ensure that the juice that will pass in the evaporators does not have impurities.
Impurities can cause the sugar to be dark and may contaminate sucrose.

Cane juice clarification aims at

(a) Elimination of suspended impurities and colloids.

(b) Removal of maximum amount of non-sugar components in solution

(c) Imparting clarity and transparency to juice’

PROCESS FLOW OF CLARIFICATION

Clarification process starts when the mixed juice is pumped to the raw juice scale
where it is weighed on 6 tons (6000 kgs.) per batch. The mixed juice then is
transferred to the mixed juice receiving tank. Mixed juice is acid (ph is less than 7.0)
and can cause the sucrose molecules to dispersed and inversion will occur. Inversion
is the process wherein the sugar sucrose is either changed to glucose or fructose
which do not have the ability to crystallise.

Fractional liming is introduced to increase the ph of the juice to solve this problem of
inversion. Fractional liming is the combination of cold and hot liming. Cold liming is
put in the surge where the juice is cold. On the other hand, hot liming take place after
the heaters and goes to the flash tank. The juice is then pump to the three (3) vertical
heaters and one (1) of the six (6) horizontal heaters where it is heated primarily to kill
the bacteria mixed in the juice and to attain a high temperature for flashing.

Non-condensable gases are gases which can cause corrosion and scaling in the tubes
of the evaporator and vacuum pans. In order to solve this problem, a flash tank is
placed before the heaters for the juice to experience flashing and dispose the non-
condensable gases especially oxygen that can be a cause of scaling and corrosion on
the tubes of evaporators and vacuum pans.

PARAMETERS

COLD LIME 6.3-6.5 ph

HOT LIME 7.3-7.5 ph
MILK OF LIME 10 Brix
JUICE FINAL TEMPERATURE 105± 2OC
EXHAUST STEAM TEMPERATURE 120-125OC
VAPOR STEAM TEMPERATURE 80-117OC
After the non-condensable gases have been disposed into the atmosphere, it then
goes to the weir box to slow the velocity of the juice that will be fed in the clarifier.
Flocculant preparation tanks is used to mixed the flocculant (FAZFLOC) with water
(dosage of which is 5 ppm per ton of cane) to be put with the juice in the clarifier. The
purpose of the flocculant is to speed up the sedimentation of impurities and take
away more volume of mud and impurities that is in the juice.

Next stage in the clarification of juice is the clarifier. The function of the clarifier is to
separate the precipitate and the clear juice from the treated and boiled juice
employing the principle of sedimentation. Clarifiers are generally divided into several
compartments, so as to increase the area for settling. There are two types of clarifiers
that are in used in the production raw of URSUMCO. They are the Rapidorr and the
Trayless Clarifiers each having a volume of 409.74m3 and 301.22m3 respectively.

The rapidorr is provided with a central hollow shaft driven by a motor with a power of
3.7 kW, rotating very slowly, which carries scrapers off sheet metal which slowly
brush the bottom of each compartment. The juice enters a compartment at the top
and is fed in the clarifier. The rapidorr consists of 4 compartments, each forming a
complete clarifier independent of the others, and fed separately by a rotating central
tube by means of openings situated in the upper part of the compartment. The
entering juice encounters baffle plates designed to ensure good distribution of the
juice. It flows radially towards the outer wall. Settling of the mud proceeds
simultaneously, and the muds deposited on the bottom plate are moved by scrapers
mounted on arms connected to the central tube and pushed towards the centre;
there they settle in the mud trays and is pumped to a mud tank, from which it goes to
the mud filtering. The clarified juice is withdrawn from each compartment by a
circumferential internal pipe with several opening which withdraw the juice close to
the roof of the compartment. The juice then flows through an overflow box, by
vertical pipes with sliding sleeves to permit regulation of the flow.

On the other hand, the trayless clarifier is simply just one of the compartments of the
rapidorr. The shaft of the clarifier is driven by a motor with a power of 2.2 kW. The
raw process is mainly using the trayless in operation primarily because of its faster
retention time with the flocculant, to which it can catch up with the flow rate of the
juice. But when it comes to clarity of the juice rapidorr has a better outcome because
it has many stages/compartments where in impurities can settle. Rapidorr is only
used when the capacity of the juice exceeds the volume of the trayless.

PARAMETERS

CLARIFIED JUICE CLARITY 20-35 kopke

CLARIFIED JUICE pH 6.8 -7.2
RETENTION TIME 45-90 minutes
FLOCCULANT 2-6 ppm on cane

PROCESS FLOW OF FILTRATION

The clarification process separates the juices treated into two layers or two parts:

(a) The clarified or clear juice, which rises to the surface

(b) The muddy juice, which collects at the bottom of the clarifier

The clarified juice goes to a set of screening machines called DSM (Dilute Screening
Machine) with primary and secondary screens, the purpose of which is to screen the
juice from fine bagacillo particles. The juice is then pumped on to the evaporators.
The muddy juice on the other hand has to be filtered, in order to separate from the
juice the suspended matter which it contains, with the bagacillo and mud entrained
with them.

Filtration is sometimes a tricky operation, and difficult to control. Juices

should be at high temperature when it passes through filtering because its
viscosity decreases as the temperature increases. Also, the meshes of the
screens use in filtering should not be too high because the juices will
experience carry over. This happens when the juices are cannot enter into the
screens but just slides in it because the meshes are covered with fine bagasse
or bagacillo.

The muddy juice that has been collected at the bottom of the clarifier is directed to a
mud tank and is pumped on the mud and bagacillo mixer. The mud and bagacillo
mixer is the one responsible for feeding muddy juice to the Rotary Vacuum Filter
(RVF). RVF is the machine used to vacuum the mud in the muddy juice and filtering it,
leaving the filtrates down and back to the mixed juice tank to be circulated again in
the clarification process.
Rotary Vacuum Filter or RVF is a filter composed of a hollow drum rotating at
horizontal axis and partly submerged in the muddy juice. The RVF is divided into
three different sectors, each having an individual purpose.

(a) One without connection to the vacuum, but connected to the atmosphere.

(b) The second communicates to a chamber where there is a low vacuum.

(c) The third is connected to a chamber where there is a higher vacuum.

The RVF as it rotates; the section where muddy juice is there is immediately
connected with the low vacuum. It has now been coated with a thin layer of filter
cake. The section passes to the higher vacuum in order to meet its resistance in the
formation of the thickness in the filter cake. Bagacillo and other impurities help the
filtration of the muddy juice and the formation of the cake. The cake is then washed
by water so that the cake would not be dry and hard to scrape. When the filter cake is
about to reach the scraper, a valve breaks the vacuum in order to detach easily the
cake using the scraper. The cake drops into a screw conveyor which transports it in a
mud hopper and distributes it in the trucks for collection.

PARAMETERS

FILTER CAKE
a.) MUD POL 3.5 max
b.)MOISTURE 72 max

RVF VACUUM PRESSURE

a.) PICK-UP 25-30 cm Hg
b.)WASHING/DRYING 30-40 cm Hg
WASH WATER 120-140 li/min
RVF DRUM RPM 0.2- 0.8 RPM

Evaporatio
n
Clarified juice contains much water and the remaining is represented by the sugar.
Most of this water must be removed in order for sucrose crystallisation and using its
vapour to heat other heat exchangers and vacuum pans. Evaporators thus serve as a
power-saver in terms of the steam that is produced by the boilers.

The object of the evaporator station is to reduce the water content of clear juice to a
level where the sugars are still in the dissolved state. Also, the condensates from the
steam injected in the evaporators are utilized in the boilers, refinery and pan station.