PILOT TRIALS ON ULTRAFILTRATION OF HOT SUGARCANE JUICE: PRELIMINARY FINDINGS

摘要

This work presents the preliminary findings of a pilot scale demonstration for the purification of hot clarified sugarcane juice by ultrafiltration. The investigations were carried out on-site at The Simbhaoli Sugar Mills Ltd., Simbhaoli, Ghaziabad district, U.P. The ultrafiltration plant was designed for 10 m~3 /h feed capacity and employed indigenous high temperature tolerant spiral wound polymeric membrane modules. This research is part of the effort to develop a process for the direct production of sulphur free, refined quality sugar without going through the conventional sugar refining route. It was observed that ultrafiltration consistently yielded a light coloured, sparkling filtrate with nearly 50% reduction in juice colour. This was coupled with an average purity rise of 0.9 units when compared to conventionally clarified juice with suspended solids removal up to 1 μm. The membrane modules did not display any visible deterioration upon exposure to hot juice during the plant operation over a two month period. This demonstration is one of the few instances world-wide where polymeric membrane modules have been successfully employed for a high temperature application beyond 60°C.