Effects of alkaline extraction of electroporated sugar beet to sugar manufacturing (Part 1)

In cooperation with the Technical University of Berlin and KIT (Karlsruher Institut far Technologie), Sudzucker AG developed a new process by combining of electroporation and subsequent alkaline extraction. This combined process allows operators to carry out beet processing completely in an alkaline milieu. Other than the conventional extraction process, only fresh water and press water get warmed up. As a consequence, the raw juice temperature will be about 10 K lower as in the conventional process. A dry matter content of pressed pulp can be achieved 10% abs. higher than in the conventional process. These effects will result in considerable savings concerning primary energy consumption. The amount of pressed pulp will be higher by about 10% compared to the conventional process. The quality of raw juice will be better than that of the conventional process. The different composition of raw juice will enable some simplifications concerning the duct of juice purification. The preliming can be omitted. The performance of filtration will be outstanding. The new process benefits from the advantages of alkaline extraction and solves the problems that were opposed, so far, to the implementation of alkaline extraction.