Studies on Centrifugal Clarification of Sugarcane Juice - Possibilities and Limitations

A centrifugal clarifier based on the principles of a hydrocyclone with an impeller was developed for centrifugal clarification of sugarcane juice, for improvement in the quality of jaggery and khandsari. The developed clarifier and an existing standard sedimentation disc centrifuge were tested in regards of effect of operational parameters, namely, settling, boiling, clarificant addition and sampling time/ juice volume on their performance. For both equipments separation efficiencies improved significantly (1% level of significance) by the four independent parameters. Gravitational sedimentation by allowing the juice solids to settle during a settling period of 45 minutes could separate 15.23% solids, boiling the cane juice at 105C could separate 34.41% solids while clarification of sugarcane juice through vegetative/chemical clarificant could separate additional 9.1% solids from the juice. However, the overall separation efficiency ranged from 41.52% to 70.23% for centrifugal clarifier and from 44.48% to 69.11% for disc centrifuge