Softening of sugar juices and molasses has become an established unit operation in the beet sugar industry. Being a necessary prerequisite for molasses chromatographic separation technology, thin juice ion exchange softening positively affects downstream operations. It eliminates the need for descaling evaporators and improves efficiency of heat transfer. The softening process also improves boiling characteristics of juice and has a positive effect on sugar quality. Cane juice typically has higher hardness than beet thin juice, which means that larger softening systems could be required and more regenerant will be produced. Also the presence of higher suspended solids in cane juice makes it difficult to use fine ion exchange resins. It has been proven that softening of membrane filtered clarified juice is quite efficient. However, the cost of membrane filtration remains relatively high. A fractal softener with a short bed has been tested for unfiltered clarified juice. Test results and the benefitsof clarified juice softening are discussed.
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