APPLICATION OF MEMBRANE FILTRATION TO THE SUGAR ANE FILTRATION TO THE SUGAR

INDUSTRY, STATE OF THE ART

By
Eng. Abdul Aziz ABBARA1,*, Dr. Ali K. ABDEL-RAHMAN2,# ,
Prof. Dr. Mohamed R. BAYOUMI3
1 Ph.D. student (on leave) at Sugar Technology Research Institute, Instructor at
Department of
Food Engineering, Al-Baath University, Homs, Syria.
Email:abdazizabbara@yahoo.com
2 Associate Professor at Mechanical Engineering Department, Assiut University, E
gypt.
3 Professor of Production Engineering and Mechanical Design, The dean of Sugar T
echnology
Research Institute, Assiut University, Egypt.

Abstract
As we enter the new millennium, the sugar technologists are being under pressure
to eliminate
the industrial pollution, upgrading the quality of sugar with optimizing the ene
rgy
consumption. This requires modification of the conventional production process u
sing new
techniques such as membrane technology.
Membrane technology is currently a standard process in food and dairy industry,
water
purification, treatment of liquid effluent streams, and in the corn refining ind
ustry.
In the few last years, researches have proven that the membrane technology could
hold great
promise in reducing energy usage, reduction, or elimination of chemical clarific
ation and
improved final product quality.
This paper reviews the potential application of membrane filtration to the sugar
technology.
Keywords: Clarification, raw beet juice, raw cane juice, microfiltration, ultraf
iltration.
Introduction
Diffusion beet juice or raw cane juice contains beside sucrose more than 50 nons
ugar
impurities, like reducing sugars organic acids and non-organic acid, amino acids
, proteins,
starches, waxes, gums, minerals (such as potassium, magnesium, calcium, silica),
coloring
matters, and other suspended matters1,2. Separation of these impurities from the
juice as early
as possible should be done by clarification to avoid the problems of increasing
color, sucrose
inversion, high viscosity, and the generation of excess molasses1. The quality o
f the product
mainly depends on the efficiency of clarification3.
Because conventional clarification methods need heavy equipment and represent hi
gh
operating costs, in addition create environmental problems4, the sugar industry
has
contemplated the possible use of advanced technologies which were proven in othe
r
industries.
Membrane separation is one of such technologies that will compete favorably for
reducing energy usage, reducing, or elimination of chemical clarification and im
proved final
product quality. Another promising area of application is in production of new p
roducts, such
as organic sugars5.
Today most membrane filtration systems use cross-flow (or tangential flow) filtr
ation,
where the feed stream flows across the membrane rather than through it. This hel
ps to prevent
clogging of the membrane by retained particles6,7 .
Based on the size (or molecular weight) of the targeted particles, membranes use
d in
filtration are usually classified as reverse osmosis (RO), nanofiltration (NF),
ultrafiltration
(UF), or microfiltration (MF) filtersfiltration are usually classified as revers
e osmosis (RO), nanofiltration (NF), ultrafiltration
(UF), or microfiltration (MF) filters7.
The favored configurations for sugar industry applications include tubular for t
he
ceramic, carbon and stainless steel membranes, spiral wound and hollow fiber for
the
polymeric membranes6.
In the following paragraphs, the membrane seaparation process to the sugar indus
try
will be presented.
New Separation Process: Beet Sugar Industry
Raw juice clarification
Clarification of the raw beet juice using carbonation process is used by all sug
ar
factories worldwide with many modifications8.
Carbonation process is efficient in manufacturing a final sugar from raw beets,
it
nonetheless creates significant problems in respect of energy, raw material cons
umption and
water consumption, as well as handling and disposal of carbonatation sludge9,10
.
Consequently, several processes using crossflow microfiltration or ultrafiltrati
on have
been proposed by different researchers as potential routes to reduce or eliminat
e the use of
lime in the beet sugar factory 11-14.
Vaccari et al.11 proposed a method for direct production of commercial white sug
ar
without using the traditional clarification process. The process, includes addin
g sodium
hydroxide to the raw juice to adjust the pH to 7 in order to limit the sucrose i
nversion by
subsequent steps. Then the raw juice is subjected to microfiltration using an or
ganic
membrane having a pore size of 0.2 m. After that, the microfiltered juice is pas
sed through a
cationic resin in the sodium form to eliminate the magnesium ion. Finally, the t
hin juice is
concentrated at low temperatures and three stages cooling crystallization
Results showed that commercial white sugar could be obtained directly without th
e
need of refining in the first crystallization step. The energy balance is largel
y in favor of the
new process in comparison with the traditional method 11.
Clarification of press water
Another encouraging route to improve the quality of diffusion juice, which will
be
reflected on clarification, is to apply membrane filtration for clarification of
press water8.
Press water is a very dilute stream containing about 3-4% of total sugar enterin
g he
factory. It is recycled back to a diffusion stage after pulp presses. Membrane f
iltration can be
applied for both press water sterilization and suspended solids removal8,15 .
Thin juice concentration
It was reported that approximately 50% of the energy utilized to produce beet an
d
cane sugar is consumed during the evaporation of water. That is why the highest
potential for
energy reduction is concentration of clarified thin juice from 12 to 14% of refr
actometric dry
substance (RDS) to a maximum of 30% RDS while osmotic pressure is already about
3.5
MPa . However, many problems associated with thermal creep within the membrane m
odules
must be further solved. Moreover, higher osmotic pressure of concentrated thin j
uice needs
higher energy inputs, what impedes an easy industrial application 13.
Madsen16 has carried out pilot tests on nanofiltration of thin juice. The tests
showed
that it is possible to concentrate thin juice from approximately 14% sucrose con
tent to 1719%
sucrose content with an average approximately 30 l/(m2.h) at a filtration pressu
re of 40
bar. The permeate has a sugar content of less than 0.5 %, and the purity of the
permeate is
approximately 60%. The best operating temperature is in the region of 70 oC. Dur
ing one
operations are mainly: producing higher quality sugar, increasing sugar recovery
, reducing
chemical usage in evaporator cleaning and reducing steam consumption
ons are mainly: producing higher quality sugar, increasing sugar recovery, reduc
ing
chemical usage in evaporator cleaning and reducing steam consumption 24.
Clarification of syrup
During the evaporation of the clarified juice to the syrup, a considerable quant
ity of
non-sugars that were soluble in the clarified juice became insoluble in the syru
p due to the
loss of 80 percent juice original water content. For this reason, evaporator syr
up is usually
almost opaque.
Phosflotation is used for clarifying syrup as in blanco directo process 17,18. H
owever,
the large calcium phosphate precipitates are friable and cannot be subjected to
intensive
aeration which can only be obtained by violent mechanical means, if subject to i
ntensive
aeration, a large portion of these precipitates are eroded and again somehow def
eat the initial
intent of their optimum utilization25.
Saska7 discovered that nanofiltration of syrup through a membrane with pore size
on
the order of 20 to 50 ANG. not only decolorizes the solution, but also produces
a permeate
having enhanced crystallization properties.
New Separation Process: Raw Sugar Refining
Clarifying of sugar melt
Researches were performed to replace both the affination and clarification proce
ss by
a single crossflow ultrafiltration4 or microfiltration26. This would simplify th
e process,
eliminate the pollution problem and produce of a retentate, which can be easily
blended with
final molasses of the refinery27.
Decolorization using ion exchange with brine recovery
The ion exchange resin process is considered as on of the most efficient method
for
decolorization sugar liquor. However, effluents resulting from alkaline brine re
generation
create some disposal problems. This is due to the regeneration effluent contains
a high
concentration of sodium chloride and colored organics23.
To overcome these problems, Applexion developed a method for brine recovery usin
g
low cost spiral membrane. The color is concentrated in small volume of retentate
, while in the
permeate the main part of the salt is recovered, re-usable for a further resin r
egeneration28.
Conclusions

Review of data indicated that micro-and ultrafiltration of raw beet, raw cane ju
ices
can provide high quality permeate and therefore, improve sugar quality.
Applying membrane filtration to purify raw juices leads to eliminate or minimize
the
consumption of the lime.
Direct production of refined sugar from raw cane juice could be achieved by appl
ying
membrane filtration along with softening and chromatographic separation.
References
[1] Gil G.E and P.H. Wright (1994). Process for producing refined sugar from raw
juices. US
Patent No. 5,281,279.
[2] Verma S.K., R. Srikanth, S.K. Das, and G. Venkidachalam (1996). An efficient
and novel
approach for clarification of sugarcane juice by micro-and ultrafiltration metho
d. Indian
Journal of chemical Technology, Vol. 3, 136-139.
[3] Xian Z.S., Q.T. Qiu, X.X. Fei, and H.S. Qing (1998). Ultrasonic flotational
separation of
syrup with polyacrylamide. International Sugar Journal, Vol. 100, No. 1193, 221-
222.
[4] Lancrenon X., M.A. Theoleyre and G. Kientz (1993). Mineral membranes for the
sugar
industry. Sugar y Azucar, May, 39-45.
[25] 25] Suzor C.L.N. (1979). Process for the purification of evaporated sugar s
olutions. US
Patent No. 4,234,350.
[26] Dornier M., R. Petermann and M. Decloux (1995). Influence of start- up proc
edure on
crossflow microfiltration of raw cane sugar. Journal of Food Engineering, Vol. 2
4, 213224.
[27] Lancrenon X., D. Herve and F. Roussrt (1998). A new generation of cane suga
r
refineries. International Sugar Journal, 100,1189,490-498.
[28] Theoleyre M.A. (1999). Recent application of membrane filtration in the can
e sugar
industry. New Orleans, Sept. 9-10.