Processing of long-stored sugar beet

Abstract

Due to economic changes within the European sugar industry in the last decade, most sugar producers have been confronted with longer sugar campaigns, thus creating extremely challenging circumstances for applied technologies. In Austria, a two-year project was initiated to optimize some process steps within juice purification. The project incorporates the development of an automated determination system for the optimal flocculating point, the optimized dosing of alkalizing agents as well as the application of precipitated or ground calcium carbonate (PCC/GCC) and dextranase. All these measures are undertaken to improve the filterability of juices in juice purification in order to maintain a high processing capacity of the factory. After a short summary of results for the above-mentioned measures, the authors report about the impartial identification of deteriorated beet, which was the focal point of the second project-year. This part of the work compares results achieved with an image analysis system and an industrial FID-detector.