Effect of Ultrasound Probe Homogenization to Improve Sucrose Recovery from Sugar Factory Products

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Effect of Ultrasound Probe Homogenization to Improve Sucrose Recovery from Sugar Factory Products Marsha R. Cole1* and William B. Morris1 1 Louisiana Tech University, United States Abstract: Maximizing sugar recovery from bagasse and final molasses is economically important to sugar mills. On average, approximately 20-40 lb sucrose per ton of crushed cane is lost to the molasses and bagasse each year. Evaluating that sucrose loss in terms of the amount of cane crushed in Louisiana in 2016, approximately 128,000–250,000 tons of sucrose was left unrecovered and $76-152 millions of profitable dollars were untapped. This is largely due to increases in massecuite viscosity (molasses + sucrose crystals) that limits molasses exhaustion and sucrose recovery. This presents a critical need for technologies to improve sucrose recoveries from final molasses for the sugar industry to be more profitable. This research investigated whether the use of probe ultrasonication technology can improve the viscosity of final C molasses obtained from two Louisiana sugar mills (LSM 1 and LSM 2). As expected, sonication (3 – 10 min, 60% amplitude) improved the viscosity of both LSM 1 and LSM 2 samples as temperature increased from 40°C to 60°C. Upon comparing the effects of sonication to the nontreated control, the viscosity for LSM 1 improved by 6.3, 21.2, 14.9, and 11.0% at 25, 40 (factory storage temperature), 50, and 60°C (factory flowing temperature), respectively. For LSM 2, mean improvements in viscosity between the nontreated control and sonicated samples were 32.6, 23.1, 29.0, and 39.7% at 25, 40, 50, and 60°C, respectively. Results indicate that sonication shows potential to improve molasses handling at temperatures at or below 40°C by improving flowability and viscosity. Complementary ATR-IR confirmed that viscosity improvements were attributable to reductions in hydrogen bonding between polar impurities. More studies are on-going to determine whether sonication affected the hydrogen bonding between the processing or natural impurities in the molasses and if their molecular weight distributions were reduced. Acknowledgements American Sugar Cane League Alma Sugar Plantation Enterprise Plantation Keywords: Sucrose recovery, Molasses, Sonication, Sugar manufacture, Viscosity, Sugar boiling, Sugar yield Conference: National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) 45th Annual Conference , Orlando, Florida, United States, 17 Sep - 20 Sep, 2018. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: Analytical Chemsitry Citation: Cole MR and Morris WB (2019). Effect of Ultrasound Probe Homogenization to Improve Sucrose Recovery from Sugar Factory Products. Front. Chem. Conference Abstract: National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) 45th Annual Conference . doi: 10.3389/conf.fchem.2018.01.00032 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 10 Oct 2018; Published Online: 17 Jan 2019. * Correspondence: Dr. Marsha R Cole, Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, United States, cole@latech.edu Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Marsha R Cole William B Morris Google Marsha R Cole William B Morris Google Scholar Marsha R Cole William B Morris PubMed Marsha R Cole William B Morris Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.