Determining Optimum Conditions for Sugarcane Juice Refinement by Pilot Plant Dead-end Ceramic Micro-filtration

The conditions for the refinement of clarified sugarcane juice, including temperature (50o, 60o and 70oC) and pressure (0, 0.5, 1 and 1.5 bars) by micro-filtration membrane technology were investigated. The raw sugarcane juice was initially pre-filtrated with lime and then the juice obtained (clarified juice) processed using a ceramic micro-filter membrane (0.2 micrometer). The characteristics investigated included brix, polarity (sucrose percent), turbidity, color and purity. The results showed that the effects of different process conditions with micro-filtration on reduction of turbidity and color were significant at probably <0.01 and probably <0.05, respectively. For other characteristics, no significant difference was observed. Finally, a temperature of 70oC and transmembrane pressure of 1.5 bar were determined as the optimum conditions for ceramic micro-filtration. Membrane processing at 70oC and 1.5 bars reduced the turbidity, viscosity and color of clarified juice 56.25%, 16.67% and 6.49%, respectively, and increased 0.87 units of purity