The main raw material for sugar production in our country is sugar beet. While increasing the efficiency of milk production depends on the quality of feed beets, which differs from the sugar beets by the size of the fruit, such indicators as sugar content and degree of contamination are very important for sugar production. The mass of beet root crops intended for livestock feed in harvest years can reach 10-14 kg, while the maximum mass of sugar beet root crops is 0.6 kg.
To search for problems that affect improving the efficiency of sugar production, you should consider the basic technological scheme of its production. Data will also be presented below that will help to understand how increasing the efficiency of crop production (in this case, beet production) affects the reduction of losses in sugar production.
Before being processed, the beets undergo quality acceptance, then preparation for submission to the plant, which consists in preliminary cleaning. After washing, the beets are weighed on special scales and fed to beet-cutting machines to obtain chips of a certain size. An increase in the surface of the chips helps to produce more juice, but small chips are faster to wear and more difficult to process, so the size of the chips should be regulated by the regulatory documentation for the particular production, based on the technical characteristics of the equipment used.
Then, diffusion juice (sugar molecules and non-sugar molecules are dissolved in water) is obtained in a diffusion plant. The temperature of the juice from 70 to 75 ° C ensures the coagulation of protein molecules and the release of sugar chips from the cells due to its dissolution in hot water. Sugar-free chips - beet pulp - are separated and sent to the consumer. Sugars dissolved in water - diffusion juice - are fed for purification.
The purpose of cleaning is to remove suspended substances and non-sugar dissolved in it from diffusion juice, neutralize the acids contained in it and discolor it. The main reagent used for cleaning is milk of lime. Milk is being prepared in a special section of the sugar factory. After dosing the milk of lime into juice, the resulting mixture (lime-sugar solution) is carbonated (saturated with carbon dioxide).
The saturated mixture is filtered through a cloth, again saturated and filtered. During these operations, chemical decomposition and precipitation of non-sugars occurs. Refined juice is fed to evaporation to thicken the juice and obtain syrup. The thick syrup obtained in this way is fed into vacuum apparatuses (due to lowering the process pressure, it is possible to lower the boiling point of the syrup). In vacuum units, the syrup is subjected to boiling and thickening by evaporation to a supersaturated state.
To initiate the process of crystallization of sugar in the thickened mass, the required number of small crystals of powdered sugar is dosed. Crystal nuclei are formed, and upon further boiling, their growth begins to a size from 0.5 mm to 0.9 mm. The result is massecuite - a mixture of the remaining syrup with sugar crystals. The yield of the final product depends on the duration of cooking the massecuite and the content of sugar crystals in it.
Hot massecuite is sent to sieve drums for centrifugation, where sugar crystals are separated from hot syrup. The syrup is returned to the process to obtain massecuite, and sugar crystals are washed with water to remove yellowness. Then served on drying with hot air. Dry sugar is dispersed into fractions, which are deposited or for packaging and packaging.
At each stage of sugar production, any deviations (from the technological regime established by the documentation) can lead to tangible sugar losses, resulting in a decrease in the yield of the finished product and worsening of economic indicators. Thus, increasing the efficiency of sugar production depends on the quality of the process.
To date, the main causes of sugar losses during its manufacture can also be attributed to contamination of root crops (up to 15%), a decrease in beet mass during its storage (up to 3.9%), losses at various technological stages of sugar production (up to 0.7%). The calculation of the maximum sugar loss for the plant processing beets in the amount of 6.0 thousand tons / day shows that such losses, when all the adverse factors are combined, can exceed 190 tons / day. Therefore, increasing the efficiency of sugar production is associated with solving problems aimed at minimizing losses.
Other measures aimed at improving production efficiency and reducing costs should be associated with expanding the range of products through deeper processing of sugar by-products. Since their traditional use in the national economy (beet pulp for livestock feed, molasses in the food industry, defecation mud for liming the soil) is now ineffective.