School of Chemistry and Physics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville Campus, Private Bag X54001, Durban 4000, South Africa; Mauritius Sugar Industry Research Institute, Reduit, Mauritius
Hoi, L.W.S., School of Chemistry and Physics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville Campus, Private Bag X54001, Durban 4000, South Africa, Mauritius Sugar Industry Research Institute, Reduit, Mauritius; Martincigh, B.S., School of Chemistry and Physics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville Campus, Private Bag X54001, Durban 4000, South Africa
The quality of sugar cane received at Mauritian sugar factories has deteriorated significantly because of increased amounts of extraneous matter delivered in the cane supply. This leads to poorer juice quality and sucrose losses. In this work controlled addition of extraneous matter to clean cane was effected under laboratory conditions to determine the relative impact of dry and green cane leaves and cane tops on the quality of cane and the resulting juice, and to predict their impact on cane processing. Dry leaves produced the most adverse effect on sugar recovery, boiling house recovery and overall recovery. One unit of dry leaves increased fibre % cane, mass of bagasse % cane and sucrose loss in bagasse % cane and in molasses % cane by 0.57, 1.17, 0.030 and 0.011 units respectively, and decreased sugar recovery by 0.23 units. Cane tops increased the amount of fructose and glucose in mixed juice which reduced the Clerget purity of molasses. However, this increased the mass of molasses % cane, which resulted in a much higher sucrose loss in molasses than would have been produced by the same amount of dry leaves. The ill-effect of green leaves was found to be intermediate between that of dry leaves and cane tops.