National Sugar Institute, Kanpur takes up pilot plant trials for concentrating the sugarcane juice by “Reverse Osmosis” technique at Dalmia Bharat Sugar Industries, Nigohi, Shajhahanpur, Uttar Pradesh. At present, the juice is concentrated by carrying out evaporation where steam is used as heating media.
“Reverse Osmosis” is considered to be a promising technique which is likely to offer many advantages over the conventional technique viz. lower colour development during processing hence better sugar quality, lower sugar loss because of avoidance of heat and overall lower energy requirements. For the sugar factories looking for expansion in crushing capacity but having constraints of steam availability shall be greatly benefitted by adding such “Reverse Osmosis” unit as Pre-evaporators, said Prof. Narendra Mohan, Director, National Sugar Institute, Kanpur.
We have designed the system in collaboration with M/s Ion Exchange (India) Ltd. and the pilot plant trials also indicate that the water separated from the juice shall be much better quality in comparison to that obtained during concentration by steam boiling process and thus it would be possible to use for many other purposes, thus, reducing requirement of fresh water for processing, said Shri Jitendra Singh, Consultant.
The technology may prove to be a milestone in the history of sugar processing in the sugar industry across the world as it appears to have additional advantages of being user friendly, easily to retrofit, compact and having overall lower cost of plant & machinery as compared to Evaporation system, said Shri Amit Negi, General Manager (Production), Dalmia Bharat Sugar Industries, Nigohi, Shajhahanpur,
