APPLICATION OF COLOR MEASUREMENT OF PROCESS INTERMEDIATES FOR PROCESS CONTROL

摘要

The presenet scenario of sugar industry shows that the color of sugar has become and important parameter, which determines the marketability of plantation white sugar and also the price in the domestic and in the international market. Hence it is essential for a sugar industry to produce sugar of low color value by monitoring the process effectively. The results of our experiments shows that the color values at differernt stages of process such as clarification, evaporation, syrup sulphitation, pan boiling and crystallization shall give an idea about the process efficiency and to identify the stations which deviates from its ideal performance. It is also evident from the data that the color of mixed juice does influence the color of sugar. Based on the data obtained from our experiments, the following conclusions were 1. Color analysis of process intermediates such as Clear Juice, Uss, Ss and Massecuites will be highly useful to identify the areas where the color is being created in the process. 2. The color of sugar depends on the color of mixed juice where the variations in process conditions are low. 3. Color removal at the clarification and syrup sulphitation stage should as high as 70-75% and 18-20% respectively to produce sugar of low lor irrespective of the color of Mixed juice. 4. The color formation at the evaporation stage should be minimized.