Extraction of sucrose from sugar cane

Sugar cane was introduced to the Caribbean by the Dutch in about 1625.

Jamaica has about 7 factories (Monymusk, Clarendon; Golden Grove, St. Thomas; Appleton in
St. Elizabeth; Bernard Lodge, St. Catherine; Frome, Westmoreland; Worthy Park, St. Catherine;
Long Pond, Trelawny).

The process involves harvesting, washing, shredding, crushing, clarification, filtration,

evaporation, crystallization, centrifugation and drying.

Harvesting: Cane is collected from the field, washed and chopped into large pieces.

Milling/Crushing: Crushers separate the juice from the fibre. The juice is collected and the fibre
is processed to make bagasse.

Clarification/Precipitation: The cane juice which is acidic at this stage, is placed into the
clarifiers and treated with Ca(OH)2 (lime) to remove impurities and to neutralize the acids. The
impurities form large clumps called flocculants and these sink to the bottom of the mixture.

Filtration: The juice then goes to the filters which remove impurities. The filtrate formed is the
clarified juice and the residue is called factory mud which is returned to the cane fields.

Evaporation/Vacuum Distillation: The clarified juice enters a series of 3 to 4 evaporators. Each

boiler/evaporator is successively lower in temperature and pressure than the previous so that
charring of the juice is avoided.
The juice enters the first evaporator at 85% water. The final juice contains 35% water.

Crystallization: The resulting syrup from evaporation is evaporated until it is saturated. Seeding
can be used to aid in the crystallization. This is where small grains of sugar are added to the
mixture to encourage crystallization. This results in a very thick mixture of syrup (molasses) and
sugar crystals. This mixture is called massecuite.

Centrifugation: Sugar is then separated from the massecuite by centrifugation where the
mixture is placed in a large perforated basket and spun at high speeds. This causes the molasses
to be forced out through the holes leaving the sugar crystals behind.

Drying: The sugar crystals are collected and dried by applying heated air.