ESTIMATION OF THE SUITABILITY OF METHODS FOR DETERMINING LACTIC ACID CONTENT IN DIFFUSION JUICE FOR APPLICATION IN CHEMICAL AND TECHNICAL CONTROL OF SUGAR PRODUCTION

Abstract

Development of microbiological infection in the process of production of diffusion juice is one of the most important factors affecting the quality of diffusion juice and sucrose loss. In this regard, it is important to promptly monitor the microbiological contamination of mixture from water and beet chips in the diffusion apparatus. Lactic acid is used as an indicator of the degree of microbiological contamination of the diffusion juice. Traditionally, when calculating unaccounted sucrose losses on diffusion, the titrimetric method is used to determine the concentration of lactic acid with preliminary isolation of acid anions from the diffusion juice on ionite columns. However, this method is time-consuming and labor-intensive and is not suiTable for operational control. The article suggests using a simpler and less time-consuming spectrophotometric method for operational control, based on measuring the optical density of the colored product of the reaction of lactate ions with iron(III) chloride at a wavelength 400 nm. The results of evaluating the consistency of data on the content of lactic acid in diffusion juices obtained using the traditional and spectrophotometric methods are presented in article. The results of data analysis using the Bland-Altman descriptive statistics method confirm that the data obtained by various methods are in good agreement with each other, and therefore the spectrophotometric method for determining the concentration of lactate ions can be used in production control in the sugar industry.