Sugarcane is a perennial, fairly tall herbaceous plant in the cereal family. Grown in subtropical and tropical regions to produce sucrose and other by-products of sugar production.
Culture Description
Sugarcane outwardly resembles bamboo. Its stems grow in small tufts, have a cylindrical shape and reach a height of up to seven meters with a thickness of one to eight centimeters. It is from the juice of the stems that sugar is obtained. At the nodes of each stem are the kidneys (eyes), which subsequently develop into small lateral shoots. They are used for propagation of sugarcane by the method of cuttings. Seeds are formed in the upper part of the inflorescences (in panicles). They are mainly used for breeding new species of cane and only in rare cases in the form of seed.
Sugarcane requires fertile soil, plenty of sun and water. That is why it is cultivated only in areas with a humid and hot climate. To get the maximum amount of sucrose from the stems (17 percent of the mass), the crop is harvested immediately after the growth of the plant is stopped in height.
Cane Sugar Production
Sugarcane is the oldest cultivated crop and the only one from which sugar is produced in Africa, Oceania, Latin America and Asia. In Europe, sugar cane sugar is obtained only in Portugal and Spain.
Sugar production in Russia dates back to the first half of the 7th century, when the first sugar factory was built in St. Petersburg. It was obtained from imported cane raw sugar.
By tradition, even today in almost all countries where sugar cane grows, it is raw sugar that is processed and produced, and not a finished product in the form of granulated sugar . Basically, the purity of raw sugar reaches 98 percent. It is exported to Russia and other countries in the form of raw materials, from which granulated sugar is already obtained.
Due to the significant differences in the chemical composition and structure of technological plant tissues , the process of processing sugar cane is significantly different from the production of sugar beets.
To obtain sugar from cane, its stems are cut before flowering. At this moment, they contain up to 12 percent of fiber, up to 21 percent of sugar and up to 73 percent of water, as well as protein substances and salts.
Next, the cut stems are squeezed and squeezed juice out of them using iron forks. It contains about 0.03 percent protein, 0.1 percent starch, 0.22 percent nitrogen-containing substances, 0.29 percent salts (mainly organic acids), 18.36 percent sucrose, 81 percent water and a small percentage of aromatic components. which give the juice a special smell. To separate the proteins, freshly slaked lime is added to the raw juice and heated to 70 degrees. This mass is filtered and then evaporated to crystallize sugar.
Sucrose: application
Sucrose (ordinary sugar) is a monoclinic colorless crystals that dissolve well in water. In large quantities, it is found in beets and in reeds, from which it is obtained by technical processing.
Sucrose is used directly as a food product or as part of various confectionery products. In high concentration, it is used as a preservative. In addition, sucrose is used in the chemical industry to produce butanol, glycerol, dextran, ethanol and citric acid.
Sucrose is also a rather valuable raw material in the pharmaceutical industry in the manufacture of drugs.
In conclusion, I would like to note that sugarcane is the main raw material in the production of sucrose. It accounts for two-thirds of the sugar produced worldwide.