STARCH SEPARATION AND STARCH REFINING

The separated starch gluten mixture is then passed through Degritting cyclones to remove
small impurities, sand and foreign particles, which may have been present in the millstream,
since these impurities will be flowing through the centrifuge nozzles at high speed and may
cause rapid wear.

In order to protect the centrifuge nozzles from blocking a self-cleaning rotary strainer is placed
before the primary centrifuge. It will remove the oversize material, which has passed through
the earlier system. The cleaning is done with the help of a rotary brush that rotates slowly and
the oversize material is collected in the base.

The milled starch is concentrated in a milled separator. The main separation of starch and
gluten takes place at the primary separator. This is a nozzle bowl centrifuge and is operated at
high starch density through nozzles so that the lighter gluten is discharged in the overflow. The
starch is discharged in the underflow with 2-4% protein.

The gluten content of slurry which is discharged in the overflow is very less and hence is further
thickened in the further process in a Gluten thickener (which is another nozzle bowl centrifuge)

Here thick gluten slurry is obtained as underflow and the overflow is usually water with some
insoluble. This water is used as process water and is used to wash the fibre and germs and
also used as steep water by adding sulphur di oxide gas.

Starch from primary separator has a protein content of 2-4% and some soluble impurities. A
multistage counter washing hydro cyclone battery system further purifies it. Soft water is
introduced at the last washing stage. Small cylonettes are used in a battery form in each hydro
cyclone stage. The underflow of the system is pure starch slurry, which contains at 0.4% or less
protein. This starch is pure enough for all further processing into various derivatives.

The overflow is usually water with soluble impurities and is used in the process as wash water.

The purified starch milk is stored in tanks for further processing such as drying and making dry
starch powder and/or converting into liquid glucose. This becomes starting point for various
derivatives of starch such as liquid glucose, Maltodextrins, Dextrose monohydrate, dextrose
anhydrous, Sorbitol, high fructose corn syrups etc.

GLUTEN DEWATERING AND DRYING

The thickened gluten dewatered by means of filter Press and conveyed to the gluten dryer. will
be steam tube bundle dryer where hot air and gluten particles will flow in a concurrent flow and
the gluten will be dried

The pneumatic conveying system is provided to convey gluten to the packing hoppers and
automatic packing machines are provided to pack the material in 40kg HDPE bags.

STARCH DEWATERING AND DRYING

The purified starch, which will be stored in tanks for further processing, is pumped to the starch
drying section to a tank, which is a feed tank to a centrifuge. Since the starch slurry contains
about 35% solids and rest is all water it is necessary to dewater the slurry. This is achieved in a
peeler type centrifuge. . Here the moisture of starch is reduced to a level of 35% from 65 to 68%

This dewatered starch is then further dried in a flash type dryer with steam heated air and
starch flowing in concurrent flow and the dried starch particles with air culminating into a
cyclone separator via a tube. Starch transfers moisture to the air as it travels through the drying
tube and the dried product is collected in the cyclones. The air is scrubbed to recover any
carryover before being discharged to the atmosphere.

The pneumatic conveying system is provided to convey Starch to the packing hoppers and
automatic packing machines are provided to pack the material in HDPE bags.

Modified Starch
The refined slurry is pumped into a reaction tank. There, special ingredients, agents and salts
are added. Those additives are stored in tanks in an aqueous solution and pumped into the
mixing tank.

The mixture is intensively stirred and heated through indirect hot water heating. This process
follows a special curve for certain timing and temperature. After this, the mixture is neutralized
and cooled down and pumped into a tank.

By a Multi- stage hydro cyclone system, the salt, unreacted products and by-products are
washed out. After this step the product is basically finished and only needs to be de-watered by
a peeler centrifuge. During starch dewatering, the filtrate water is discharged to the filtrate water
tank. The dewatered starch cake is transported by conveyors to the feed hopper of the
pneumatic flash dryer and then by a feeder to a lifter. The hot air is created by a steam-heated
heat exchanger. The wet starch is heated by the hot air and the water is evaporated. After
drying, the starch is separated from the air by a set of cyclones, of which the bottom is closed
by a rotating airlock. The moist air is discharged into the atmosphere by an exhauster. The
collected starch is transported by a set of screw conveyors to a vibrating sieve unit, where the
coarse particles will be separated from the fine starch

The pneumatic conveying system is provided to convey Modified Starch to the packing
hoppers and automatic packing machines are provided to pack the material in HDPE bags