THE PERFORMANCE OF CONTINUOUS CENTRIFUGALS ON HIGH GRADE MASSECUITE

摘要

The 1994 season was the first in the Australian sugar industry where certain factories became reliant on continuous centrifugals for a substantial proportion of their shipment sugar production. This has allowed the accumulation of considerable performance data measured during routine production of a range of sugar qualities from JA to direct consumption quality and including white refined sugar. This paper reports on comparisons between the performance of batch and continuous centrifugals, with particular emphasis on sugar and molasses purity results at various rates and sugar polarisation standards. Raw sugar machines have been successfully applied to production of all types of sugar (JA to XHP) on both A and B massecuite. However, the production of XHP sugar from lower purity B massecuites or those having a high proportion of fines is difficult. Different washing mechanisms exist for continuous and batch machines. As a result, it is difficult to dissolve sugar in the continuous machine. Dissolution, while not desirable, is essential for certain applications such as producing sugar of 99.4 pol from massecuites of less than 85 pol and white sugar from beet massecuites. Also, if the massecuite contains a high proportion of fine crystals, the capacity to produce higher pol sugars is reduced. Options to provide for dissolution are outlined. Brief mention is made of crystal quality and power consumption.