ROUTINE DATA GENERATION FOR SUGAR MILL AND REFINERY APPLICATIONS USING A LABORATORY-BASED NEAR INFRARED (NIR) INSTRUMENT

THE ROUTINE OPERATION of sugar mills and refineries is heavily dependent upon the generation of laboratory data for various factory substrates. Many laboratory methods are technically demanding, costly, time-consuming and require dedicated laboratories and equipment. Near infrared (NIR) analyses provide a number of advantages over other methods including reduced labour and consumable costs, enhanced throughput, non-destructive sample preparation and analysis. This paper describes the development of NIR-based calibrations for a wide range of sugar mill and refinery process steams which can be used on laboratory-based NIR instruments. These instruments can be located and operated in sugar mill and refinery laboratories with a minimum of staff training and dedicated expertise required. Calibration sets have been developed for the analysis of raw/refined/liquid sugars, liquors, high/low grade syrups, magma, molasses, massecuite, mill mud, raw wash, scum, juice and bagasse, covering applications within sugar mill and/or refinery process streams. Laboratory NIR systems can provide a very cost effective means of delivering routine analytical data and subsequent process decisions or applications from relatively simple easy-to-use instruments.