The beneficiation of refinery molasses into liquid sugars using ion exchange technology at Huletts refinery

摘要

The handling of raw sugar refinery molasses is a problem most sugar refineries are faced with. To this end, many processing options have been proposed and evaluated over the years. The advantages of such processes include the beneficiation of a low value stream, the reduction of recovery crystallisation and recovery house operations, the reduction of a low purity sugar recycle stream and an increased overall refinery throughput. The processing option discussed in this paper is the beneficiation of refinery molasses into liquid sugars. A process utilising continuous and batch ion exchange technology for de-ashing, inversion and decolourisation, followed by evaporation and carbon treatment, was developed, trialled and implemented. Return syrup is currently being treated using this process at the Huletts Refinery to produce a medium/high invert liquid sugar.