Cane mills

The first use of steam power as a replacement for the animal or human power that drove the cane mills occurred in Jamaica in 1768. This first attempt worked only a short time, but steam drive was used successfully a few years later in Cuba. Steam drive for the mills soon spread throughout the world. The use of steam instead of direct firing was soon appHed to the evaporating of the cane juice. 

BAGASSE The fibrous byproduct of sugar cane milling. 

OPEN PAN SULFITATION (OPS) A sugar cane mill process wherein sugar solutions are concentrated by boiling in an open pan at atmospheric pressure, rather than under a vacuum, and bleached (see SULFITATION) to produce a white sugar product. 

In this business case there are two suppliers who provide the lubricants to the Mexican sugar mills. The lubricant is delivered to the sugar mill and collected and recycled by the service providers. The machines in the sugar mill are operated by the user. The basis of payment is the amount of sugar cane milled therefore the unit of charge is based on the function of the used lubricants (Fig. 7). 

Traditionally, raw sugar is produced at the cane mill and refined sugar is produced at a refinery, usually far removed from the source of the raw sugar, and close to areas of consumption. Figure 35.1 is a generalized flow diagram for the manufacture of raw cane sugar. In summary, the juice is extracted from the harvested cane stalks, the juice is purified (clarified), concentrated by vacuum evaporation, and crystallized. The several steps are described in the sections that follow. 

The integration of biopolymer production into an existing sugar cane mill has been realized on a pilot scale by the company PHBISA in Brazil, where the saccharose obtained is converted to bioethanol and partly to PHA. In this scenario, the energy required for bioethanol and biopolymer production is generated by burning surplus biomass, namely bagasse. The fusel oil fraction of the bioethanol distillation is applied as an extraction solvent for PHA isolation from microbial biomass (Nonato et al. 2001). 

CANE MILL OR JUICE CLARIFI- MULTI-STAGE SYRUP VACUUM... 

Since 1962, a number of diffusers have been installed in cane mills throughout the world. Cane diffusers now are manufactured by a number of companies including Braunschweigische Maschinenbauanstalt, CF I Engineers Inc., De Danske Sukker-... 

Fig. 9.6. A cane mill with its three crushing rolls and with a typical turn-plate arrangement. A hydraulic piston maintains pressure on A, while B and C are fixed. The rolls are under pressure of 75-80 tons per foot of roll width.

---