Preliminary study of the impacts of constituents of sugarcane juice on sucrose degradation and pH drop during evaporation
By Marasinghege, Doherty, Bartley, Rackemann
During sugar-manufacturing processes such as evaporation, loss of sucrose can occur due to acid-catalysed hydrolysis to glucose and fructose, a reaction that is exponential with temperature. This reaction is also affected by pH, brix and residence time, as well as the impurity composition. Sugarcane juice contains many impurities extracted from the cane plant during processing, including invert sugars, minerals, organic acids, proteins, amino acids, phenolics, flavonoids and polysaccharides. Representative chemicals reflecting these impurities were spiked into synthetic sucrose solutions to determine how specific classes of impurities impact on sucrose degradation under thermal conditions. Invert sugars, flavonoids and minerals had a catalytic effect on sucrose degradation that was accompanied by higher juice pH drop. Organic acids minimised sucrose degradation slightly due to a buffering effect. Other juice constituents showed minimal impact. Studies on the catalytic activity of minerals showed that catalytic activity increased in the order of Na+
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2022_Preliminary study of the impacts of constituents of sugarcane juice on sucrose degradation and pH drop during evaporation.pdf