Value-Added Products for a Sustainable Sugar Industry

摘要

Sugar production, from both beet and cane, is energy and water-intensive. In today's social and political environment, industries strive to be environmentally sustainable and "green," while maintaining profitability. The sugar industry has three avenues for achieving these goals: (i) Improve the over-all efficiency of the process by reducing power and water usage; (ii) expand its markets with a range of innovative edible products; and (iii) enter into the 21st century's bio-based economy by developing products to replace petrochemical-derived products. The industry has done well with the first two of these, but has found barriers to exploiting the latter possibility. Nevertheless, many possibilities exist for utilizing the co-products and waste-products of sugar manufacture, as well as the sugar itself, to produce new and useful products and chemicals that reduce the world's dependence on petrochemical feedstocks.