Cane Juice Exiting a High Pressure Roller
After the wash, the cane heads for the first milling process. Hundreds of hammers beat the cane into a pulp. It rides through four or five of these presses heading for many sets of rotating knives. The knives take the now ribbon thin cane and pulverize it. After the cane is nothing more than chopped, woody residue, it is again pressed by high pressure rollers.
Each step extracts more and more sucrose from the cane. Each step is also controlled and monitored by a state of the art electronic control room sitting a few feet above the whole operation. Workers can look at any section of the process, reading speed, temperature, pressure, and more. If a problem arises, quick detection here averts a larger problem down line. The technology, we were told, was developed by the Japanese and installed by them.
Sucrose at this point is channeled into a canal in the floor of this area of the mill. Floating residue from the cane is skimmed off the top. This residue is sent to one more pressure roller. This pressure roller is hot. The residue, now void of any sucrose is sent to a centrifuge and then out of the mill on a conveyor. The residue (bagasse), is fuel for the boilers which power the mill. Today, some of the bagasse is used in ethanol production. None of the cane is wasted. What the boilers can't use is sent as fertilizer back to the fields.
This photograph, taken as the sucrose and residue exits a high pressure roller, shows a pipe pouring more sucrose from another press on the right, and a small skimming channel on the bottom right. This skimmer collects floating residue. The equipment is constantly being washed down with water ...which comes from the recycling pond.
Our sugar soup is becoming thicker. The whole process is separating and more separating. What gets separated next?