Industrial experiments for the application of ultrasound on scale control in the Chinese sugar industry.

The industrialized application of a technique of scale control by ultrasound was investigated in this paper. The results indicated that not only the viscosity of sugar solution was reduced, but also the heat transfer coefficient and evaporation intensity of the evaporation system were improved by 42.4% and 15.2% respectively, and the scale was removed remarkably with no significant effects on white sugar quality. In addition, chemical detergent was not necessary, so no chemical contamination existed and labour intensity was reduced in this technique. Furthermore, the ultrasonic equipment is easy to operate and has good performance in terms of high continuity and automisation.