Treatment of sugar beet juice with bentonite, sepiolite, diatomite and quartamin to remove color and turbidity

We investigate the efficiency of five Turkish bentonites (Samaş, Çanbensan, Karakaya-Reşadiye, Karakaya-Çankiri and Karakaya-Beyaz), a sepiolite, a diatomite and dioctade-cyldimetlhyl ammonium chloride (Quartamin D86) at removing color and turbidity from sugar beet juice. These minerals were added directly as a solid or as a suspension in water. The addition of bentonites was carried out after acid activation or without pretreatment. Bentonites, sepiolite and diatomite were added separately or with a certain amount of quartamin (600 ppm). The decolorization produced by quartamin with bentonites was about 34%, for quartamin with sepiolite the decolorization was 44.0% and for quartamin with diatomite 31.5%. Since diatomite is already used as filter aid, its application, with quartamin requires almost no change in the process, and is therefore recommended.