Sugar

Introduction Worldwide; man is known for his sweet tooth; however it is not known whether this delight in sweet things is inherent or acquired. Nevertheless it has been with us for a very long time. Sugar not only enhances the flavor of food and intensifies its colour, but it also has other properties, e.g. it can be used as a preservative or as a substrate for fermentation and it is also a source of energy. Consequently it is a very useful source of commodity. What is sugar? The white stuff we know as sugar is sucrose, a molecule composed of 12 atoms of carbon, 22 atoms of hydrogen, and 11 atoms of oxygen (C12H22O11). Like all compounds made from these three elements, sugar is a carbohydrate. Its found naturally in most plants, but especially in sugarcane and sugar beetshence their names. Sucrose is actually two simpler sugars stuck together: fructose and glucose. In recipes, a little bit of acid (for example, some lemon juice or cream of tartar) will cause sucrose to break down into these two components. If you look closely at dry sugar, youll notice it comes in little cubelike shapes. These are sugar crystals, orderly arrangements of sucrose molecules.

How sugar is made Sugar cane and sugar beets produce most of the sugar we use. Even though these plants grow in different climates, sugar cane in the tropics and sugar beets in temperate zones, once their sugar is refined; there is very little difference between the two. Sugar cane stalks grow from old stalks planted in the ground. When their growing season is over (7 to 22 months) and the stalks are 7 to 15 feet tall, they are cut and taken to a sugar mill. At the sugar mill, machines wash, cut, and shred the stalks into a pulpy mass. With water continually sprayed on it, this pulpy mass is crushed between rollers to squeeze out the sugary juice, called cane juice. The liquid, now a dark grayish-green color, is heated to its boiling point, and chemicals are added to remove impurities. Next, the juice is placed in huge tanks to evaporate, leaving a thick syrup. This syrup is heated to remove more and more water until crystals form. These crystals must be separated from the syrup, so they are put into a centrifuge machine which spins it around rapidly. The sugar which is left inside the machine's cylinders is called raw sugar. In this form, the sugar has uses to some manufacturers, but to make it suitable for food, it must go to a refinery. There, it is dissolved, treated with chemicals, filtered, crystallised once more, and allowed to solidify, this time into pure white sugar. Beet sugar is produced much the same way as cane sugar. The beets are sliced and soaked with chemicals to form a sugary syrup. This syrup is also filtered and evaporated until it, too, becomes pure white sugar. Adding together the table sugar we use with soft drinks, baked goods, candy, canned fruits, jellies, and desserts, an average person in the United States eats 100 pounds of sugar a year.

Milling Sugarcane first has to be moved to a mill which is usually located close to the area of cultivation. Sugar crystals In a sugar mill, sugarcane is washed, chopped, and shredded by revolving knives. The shredded cane is repeatedly mixed with water and crushed between rollers; the collected juices contain 1015 percent sucrose, and the remaining fibrous solids, called bagasse, are burned for fuel. Bagasse makes a sugar mill more than self-sufficient in energy; the surplus bagasse can be used for animal feed, in paper manufacture, or burned to generate electricity for the local power grid. The cane juice is next mixed with lime to adjust its pH to 7. This mixing arrests sucrose's decay into glucose and fructose, and precipitates out some impurities. The mixture then sits, allowing the lime and other suspended solids to settle out, and the clarified juice is concentrated in a multiple-effect evaporator to make a syrup about 60 percent by weight in sucrose. This syrup is further concentrated under vacuum until it becomes supersaturated, and then seeded with crystalline sugar. Upon cooling, sugar crystallizes out of the syrup. A centrifuge is used to separate the sugar from the remaining liquid, or molasses. Additional crystallisations may be performed to extract more sugar from the molasses; the molasses remaining after no more sugar can be extracted from it in a cost-effective fashion is called blackstrap. Raw sugar has a yellow to brown colour. If a white product is desired, sulphur dioxide may be bubbled through the cane juice before evaporation; this chemical bleaches many color-forming impurities into colourless ones. Sugar bleached white by this sulphitation process is called "mill white", "plantation white", and "crystal sugar". This form of sugar is the form most commonly consumed in sugarcane-producing countries. Traditionally, sugarcane has been processed in two stages. Sugarcane mills, located in sugarcane-producing regions, extract sugar from freshly harvested sugarcane, resulting in raw sugar for later refining, and in "mill white" sugar for local consumption. Sugar refineries, often located in heavy sugar-consuming regions, such as North America, Europe, and Japan, then purify raw sugar to produce refined white sugar, a product that is more than 99 percent pure sucrose. These two stages are slowly becoming blurred. Increasing affluence in the sugar-producing tropics has led to an increase in demand for refined sugar products in those areas, where a trend toward combined milling and refining has developed.

Refining In sugar refining, raw sugar is further purified. It is first mixed with heavy syrup and then centrifuged clean. This process is called 'affination'; its purpose is to wash away the outer coating of the raw sugar crystals, which is less pure than the crystal interior. The remaining sugar is then dissolved to make a syrup, about 70 percent by weight solids. The sugar solution is clarified by the addition of phosphoric acid and calcium hydroxide, which combine to precipitate calcium phosphate. The calcium phosphate particles entrap some impurities and absorb others, and then float to the top of the tank, where they can be skimmed off. An alternative to this "phosphatation" technique is 'carbonatation,' which is similar, but uses carbon dioxide and calcium hydroxide to produce a calcium carbonate precipitate. After any remaining solids are filtered out, the clarified syrup is decolorized by filtration through a bed of activated carbon; bone char was traditionally used in this role, but its use is no longer common. Some remaining colour-forming impurities adsorb to the carbon bed. The purified syrup is then concentrated to supersaturation and repeatedly crystallized under vacuum, to produce white refined sugar. As in a sugar mill, the sugar crystals are separated from the molasses by centrifuging. Additional sugar is recovered by blending the remaining syrup with the washings from affination and again crystallizing to produce brown sugar. When no more sugar can be economically recovered, the final molasses still contains 2030 percent sucrose and 1525 percent glucose and fructose. To produce granulated sugar, in which the individual sugar grains do not clump together, sugar must be dried. Drying is accomplished first by drying the sugar in a hot rotary dryer, and then by conditioning the sugar by blowing cool air through it for several days.

Pollution Prevention and Control Good pollution prevention practices in sugar manufacturing focus on the following main areas:

Reduce product losses to less than 10% by better production control. Perform sugar auditing. Discourage spraying of molasses on the ground for disposal. Minimize storage time for juice and other intermediate products to reduce product losses and discharge of product into the wastewater stream. Give preference to less polluting clarification processes such as those using bentonite instead of sulphite for the manufacture of white sugar. Collect waste product for use in other industries for example, bagasse for use in paper mills and as fuel. Cogeneration systems for large sugar mills generate electricity for sale. Beet chips can be used as animal feed. Optimize the use of water and cleaning chemicals. Procure cane washed in the field. Prefer the use of dry cleaning methods. Recirculate cooling waters. Continuous sampling and measurement of key production parameters allow production losses to be identified and reduced, thus reducing the waste load. Fermentation processes and juice handling are the main sources of leakage. Odor problems can usually be prevented with good hygiene and storage practices.

Sugarcane in Mauritius Sugar cane was introduced in the seventeenth century by the Dutch. The agricultural sector in Mauritius is dominated by sugar. Cultivation of sugar cane in Mauritius was possible by the widespread clearing of forests in the island during the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Sugar cane is considered as a fast growing grass that offers a good vegetative cover to the ground and prevents soil erosion to occur massively.

Sugarcane as a food In most countries where sugarcane is cultivated, there are several foods and popular dishes derived from it, such as: Direct consumption of raw sugarcane cylinders or cubes, which are chewed to extract the juice and the bagasse is spat out.

Freshly extracted juice by hand or electrically operated small mills, with a touch of lemon and ice, makes a popular drink. Molasses, used as a sweetener and as a syrup accompanying other foods, such as cheese or cookies. Rapadura, a candy made of flavored solid brown sugar in Brazil, which can be consumed in small hard blocks, or in pulverized form (flour), as an add-on to other desserts. Sugarcane is also used in rum production, especially in the Caribbean. Cane sugar syrup was the traditional sweetener in soft drinks for many years, but has been largely supplanted (in the US at least) by high-fructose corn syrup, which is less expensive, but is considered by some to not taste quite like the sugar it replaces.

Sugar as a carbohydrate Sugars are sweet-tasting soluble carbohydrates. Carbohydrates derive their name from the fact that they are composed of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen with hydrogen and oxygen in the ratio of 2:1, as in water. Monosaccharides such as glucose are usually pentoses or hexoses,i.e they contain 5 or 6 carbon atoms in their molecules. Disaccharides such as sucrose consist of 2 monsaccharide molecules joined by the elimination of a molecule of water. Polysaccharides such as starch are made up of many monosaccharides units joined together.

Most sugars are hygroscopic, i.e. they attract water to themselves due to the numerous OH groups in the sugar structure.

Sucrose, glucose and fructose Yeast either via acid hydrolysis or by producing enzymes cleaves sugar into glucose and fructose. Glucose is the energy source of our biological cells. Sucrose = glucose + fructose. Fructose is the naturally occurring sugar in all fruits. It is also called levulose or fruit sugar. Glucose is found in fruits but in limited amounts; it is also a syrup made from crops see DGlucose. Sucrose (table sugar) is made from cane or beet sugar. Fructose is made from corn. Well fructose is found naturally in fruits, but the fructose used in food products is generally from corn. Corn is a lot cheaper than cane. Additionally, fructose is about twice as sweet as sucrose, absorbs only 40% as quickly and causes a lower increase in blood sugar. Since fructose is absorbed more slowly than sucrose and causes fewer rises in blood sugar, factors reasoned that it would be good for diabetics. The food industry was delighted to come out with a plethora of fructose products (after all, its a lower cost ingredient). Fructose or fruit sugar is a sugar used in ferments. High Fructose Corn Syrup is an artificially produced sweet chemical that does not break down in the human body and is often used in soft drinks targeted for children.

Fructose is often recommended for diabetes mellitus or hypoglycemia. Fructose needs glucose to be properly absorbed. Excess Fructose is carried into the lower intestine where it provides nutrients for the flora. It may also cause water retention in the intestine. (bloating, excessive flatulence, loose stools, diarrhea obesity, high cholesterol and triglycerides). Fructose also chelates minerals in the blood which may or may not be a good thing. Fructose produces almost all acetic acid and very little gluconic acid while taking considerable longer to ferment. Fructose is often suggested to add to your already fermented KT just prior to bottling to sweeten and create more fizz. (1/4 tsp per quart)

Pests and diseases The most important sugarcane pests are the larvae of some butterfly/moth species, including the turnip moth, the sugarcane borer (Diatraea saccharalis), the Mexican rice borer (Eoreuma loftini), leaf-cutting ants, termites; spittlebugs (especially Mahanarva fimbriolata and Deois flavopicta), and the beetle Migdolus fryanus. The planthopper Eumetopina flavipes is an insect which acts as a vector for the phytoplasma which causes the sugarcane disease ramu stunt. All parts of plant are subject to disease and one or more diseases can occur on virtually every plant and in every field. More than 50 diseases are reported in sugarcane, the most destructive diseases are caused by fungi, bacteria, viruses and nematodes. Heavy losses (financial) occur due to the diseases and vary from place to place, depending upon the crop variety. The causes of fluctuations in production of sugar cane may be many more, but the diseases could not be ignored, neglected and or regretted, because they also cause variable loss time by time to the crop. All draw attention because of symptoms or signs and generate great concern because of their effects on the quality and/or quantity of cane. Social and environmental impacts of sugarcane The sugar cane industry has some inherent advantages. Sugar is a widely used and natural food ingredient. Sugarcane is widely grown around the world and provides employment opportunities for many thousands and uplifts rural areas. The sugar production process is selfsufficient in energy, providing all the energy for sugar manufacture (and in some cases the power for irrigation as well) from bagasse, the renewable fibre content of cane, which when burnt emits no sulphur dioxide. A range of inorganic fertilizers, pesticides and other agrochemicals are used in the cultivation of sugar crops. The inappropriate management of these agents can result in impacts on soil quality, but also on air quality (through the release of nitrogenous gases and volatiles) and

water quality (through leaching and runoff). The environmental rate of fertilizers depends on a range of factors including soil type, climate and land use management practices. Inorganic fertilizers typically supply nitrogen, phosphorus and/or potassium in mineral form. Environmental impacts typically arise because the nutrients applied with fertilizers are not matched against those taken up by the crop. Aspect of rational fertilizer and pesticide use should be considered. To enhance the sustainability of the cane sugar industry, all important issues must be addressed. Sugarcane is a water intensive crop that remains in the soil for 12 months of the year using approximately one million litres of water to produce 12.5 tonnes of commercial cane. However, some soil types are more prone to erosion than others and therefore excessive irrigation of cane fields can increase runoff and erosion. The issues relating to biodiversity must be considered. Effluents and emissions must meet accepted standards.