| TWIN FALLS -- Soon the sugar beet industry might make a huge
leap forward because of a process invented by Amalgamated Research, Inc.
and tested by Amalgamated Sugar, LLC in Twin Falls.
For over 100 years in order for sugar beet juice to be purified,
processors mixed the juice with lime and cooked it at high temperatures.
This process, which removes about 25 percent of non-sugar materials from
the juice, takes place before crystallization.
The method has two major drawbacks, according to ARi scientist Mike
Kearney.
"It only takes out 25 percent of the non-sugars," Kearney
said, "and now we have several hundred tons of lime waste outside the
factory."
Several years ago at the Twin Falls plant a new process called
chromatography, invented by ARi scientists, was added as another step
after crystallization of the sugar. Chromatography removes even more
non-sugar from the by-product molasses. The process gives growers at least
another 10 percent more sugar from their beets.
That was great news, but now Ari scientists have improved the
chromatographic process so much that the first step of cooking beet juice
with lime can be altogether eliminated. The chromatographic processor is
placed on the juice prior to sugar crystallization and separates out
between 75 to 85 percent of the non-sugar materials without the use of any
chemicals.
"Now we soften the juice in a method similar to a home water
softener," Kearney said. "We add calcium and magnesium, and
instead of chemical purification, we go to the chromatographic separator.
This makes for high-quality crystallization."
The quality of the sugar is very high, in fact beyond buyer
requirements. But that's not the real purpose, Kearney said.
"It's a much more efficient system, and much cleaner," he
said.
The sugar is recovered from the molasses in one pass instead of making
a second pass with molasses, and the lime waste is completely eliminated.
Additionally, the non-sugar materials, which ordinarily leave with the
lime, are all recovered and become a feed byproduct. In the future,
further processing might also recover valuable components from these
non-sugars.
Over the past few years, Ari and Amalgamated have been testing the
system, which already has a patent. And further development will take
place as a result of a recent Department of Energy grant to ARi and the
Idaho National Energy and Environmental Laboratory near Idaho Falls.
"Part of the DOE project involves using beet juice as a processing
model," Kearney said.
Richard Hess, who represents agricultural programs for INEEL, said
because the lab is under the DOE, one of its functions is to study
bio-energy. Chromatography of bio-mass allows components to be separated.
Some of these components can be further converted for use as an energy
source.
"ARi is one of the world leaders on sophisticated separating
systems," he said. "A lot of bio-based products in the industry
have to be processed the same way -- like sucrose, or fructose, or getting
ethanol out of straw."
In addition, some of the new process equipment might be up to 10 times
more compact than the old purification equipment, which translates into
cheaper processing and less energy consumption, Hess said. |