BRAZILIAN EXPERIENCE WITH NEW GENERATION SRI JUICE CLARIFIERS

摘要

This paper reports experience with New Generation SRI juice clarifiers in Brazilian mills during the 2003 grinding season. For the first time, three different sized clarifiers were modified or installed in Brazil using SRI clarification technology. In one case, a New Generation SRI clarifier was installed: in a second case, an existing trayless clarifier providing poor performance was modified and, in the third case, a multitray clarifier was replaced with a new SRI clarifier onto the existing support structure. All three units have performed very well, with a small period of adaptation by mill personnel for its full comprehension. During this first crop, all SRI units were operated alone with excellent results. Previously, these sugar mills were running with two and even three units for juice clarification. There is a great interest by Brazilian sugar mills to treat juice with trayless clarifiers, but all the designs tried previously were not able to perform alone satisfactorily, requiring always the operation of more than one clarifier. The benefits of having installed the SRI clarification technology include significantly higher throughput rates, improved standards of clarification, reduced sugar losses, and reduced operating costs. The results represent a significant gain to the Brazilian sugar industry, not only in clarification performance but also in reducing the cost for mill throughput expansions.