Although mechanical cleaning of evaporators must have been used in many cane sugar industries, the topic is not well covered in the literature. There are a number of reasons for […]

Spencer & Meade (1948) state that “The greatest limiting factor to all evaporators is the fouling of heating surfaces”; they also include the results (on the right) obtained by analysing […]

The cleaning of harvested sugar cane to remove tops, trash, rocks and soil is not a new concept: Spencer & Meade (1948) describe a dry cane cleaning plant used in […]

For the analysis of sugar mixtures Browne & Zerban (1948) use total solids by drying, which is an accurate but lengthy procedure; reading a refractometer Brix is simpler but requires […]

The use of pol as an estimate of sucrose has been, and still is, one of the most useful practices in the sugar industry. Its limitations were however well known; […]

“If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperilled in a hundred battles “said Sun Tzu, a Chinese military strategist of the 6th century BC (Anon, […]

Dealing with effluent may not be a favourite activity for technologists but it is an essential one. Effluents from mills and refineries are not generally toxic; the main organic constituents […]

The word “chromatography” comes from the Greek “chromos”, colour and “graphein”, to write. It describes a group of similar separation techniques depending on how fast a substance moves in a […]

“Although silicon (Si) is one of the most abundant elements found in the earth’s crust, it is mostly inert, and only slightly soluble and available to plants. With the exception […]