Quality Improvement of Sugar by Two Factor Factorial Experimentation in Optimization of Quantity of Lime and Sulphur Added in the Juice Sulphitation Process of a Sugar Plant

Abstract

Sugar industry is one of the vital sectors in improving the economy of any country. But, sugar industries are striving hard to increase their profitability due to high cost of sugar production accompanied with low selling price. Without resorting to radical restructuring of sugar plant, but through proper planning, annual savings can be improved. One of the artifices to address this issue is through improving the quality of sugar so that selling price can be increased which in turn generates more revenue to the plant. The Juice Sulphitation process, as applied in the manufacturing of sugar, is a subject of such wide-spread interest. The mixed juice from the mills contains soluble and non-soluble suspended non-sugars. These impurities are to be precipitated by the judicious and controlled addition of Milk of Lime (CaO) and subsequent neutralization by Sulphur Dioxide (SO2) gas. This paper attempts to improve the quality of sugar by optimizing the quantity of lime (in the form of milk of lime) and sulphur (in the form of SO2 gas) added in the juice sulphitation process of a sugar plant. Two factor factorial experimentation was adopted to obtain an optimal combination of lime and sulphur quantities. Data of Transmittancy test on sugar juice was collected by varying the quantities of lime and sulphur. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) table was plotted which explored the significant effects of individual treatments and interaction effects. Further to this, comparison of treatment means was carried out to find out the best treatment combination values for achieving the optimal quality of sugar from sugarcane.