Research Programme Overview
The South African sugar industry, a strategically
important agro-processing industry in South Africa, is one of the
world’s low cost producers. However, in common with many other similar
industries, it is a mature industry, showing signs of decline and it is facing
a changing and increasingly competitive marketplace for diverse reasons,
including rising production costs (cane and factory), loss of skills, taxes on
sugar-containing beverages and dumped cheap imported sugar. It has become clear that for the industry to
remain competitive and sustainable into the future, breakthrough and even
disruptive technologies will be required to create the necessary step
change. It is understood that this can
be achieved by:
- Radically
reducing the costs of production and improving the profitability of producing
sugar by using novel processing technologies and strategies. This includes process optimisation and
improving energy efficiency to reduce the “loss” of potential value. To help
achieve this, the SMRI has identified the potential of so-called Industry 4.0
technologies and systems to enhance the value of the data available to the
sugar factories, which is under-valued and under-utilised at present in terms
of relevant real-time insights and operational decision-making. The SMRI has
recently succeeded in attracting government and industry funding to embark upon
a project dubbed “Sugar Factory 4.0” to improve the value and utility of sugar
factory data (see STEP-SF4.0 Programme).
- Incorporating
a strategy of diversification and beneficiation by creating new revenue streams
(such as bioenergy and biochemical products) through adoption of an integrated
Biorefinery approach, in which biomass feedstocks are fully utilised in an
integrated manner to produce chemicals and bioenergy at least cost in a
sustainable manner. Indeed, the SMRI has been at the forefront of driving this
initiative within the South African sugarcane industry for many years and has
received substantial government and industry funding in support of such R&D
initiatives (see STEP-Bio Programme).
In addition to the two public-private
partnership-funded Programmes mentioned above, the SMRI continues to undertake
member-funded research within its Research Programme, principally in the area
of developing technologies and tools to improve unit operations and providing insights as to how to reduce sugar losses and improve recoveries. The specific
projects on the current Research Programme are diverse in nature, but all are
directed to improving factory profitability through the use of novel
technologies or techniques to address long-standing and well-known limitations
and problems in sugarcane processing.
The SMRI's Research Programme is revised annually and is approved by the institute's Advisory Research Committee, which comprises representatives from all South African sugar milling companies, the South African Sugarcane Research Institute, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and Universities, including the two SMRI Sugarcane Biorefinery Research Chairs. The various projects are guided and overseen by project steering committees, comprised of industry representatives and other subject matter experts.
The following are current projects on the Research Programme (click on list on left for further details) :
- Colour Characterisation - exploration of techniques for rapid identification of types of colour in sugar process streams for improved colour control
- Continuous Seed Preparation System (TachyX) - development of a system for continuous preparation of sucrose seed crystals for pan boiling
- Dynamic Modelling of a Diffuser - creating a model to simulate dynamic behaviour of a diffuser to better understand how to improve performance
- Microbial Diversity Profiling - identification of gum-producing bacteria in sugarcane and sugar factory process streams
- NIRS Decision-Support Toolkits - development of NIRS-based decision-support toolkits for identifying and quantifying factory sucrose losses
- NIRS For Raw House Factory Products - the SMRI Near Infrared Spectroscopy analysis technology for rapid analysis of sugar factory process streams (see also Services/NIRS)
- Polysaccharide Characterisation - understanding of the types and extent of polysaccharides in sugar factories with a view to minimising their impact
Previous projects include:
- Biological Nitrogen Fixation - investigation of the use of bacteria to fix nitrogen in vinasse
- Cane Characterisation Tools - development of laboratory tools to characterise sugarcane varieties in terms of suitability for diffuser extraction
- Diffuser Bed Voids - a project to explore improving diffuser percolation rates through elimination of bed voids
- Digestion Technology - exploration of improvements in anaerobic digestion for treatment of sugar mill effluent
- Direct Clear Juice - development of a system for clarifying and filtering diffuser draft juice within the diffuser
- Evaporator Tube Cleaning Device - investigation into the use of full-time in-tube cleaning devices
- Impact of Soil in Cane - investigation into the costs to a sugar mill of soil delivered with sugarcane
- Sacpol (Production of Sarkaran) - investigation into the potential for producing sarkaran polysaccharide by fungal fermentation
- Simulated Moving Bed Pilot Plant - exploration of the potential for industrial chromatography to recover sucrose in sugar mills
- Study of Hard-To-Boil Massecuites - exploration of physical phenomena slowing massecuite boiling rates
- Sugar Filterability Apparatus (Filterkwik) - an instrument for more consistent and informative measurement of sugar filterability (see Services/SMRI Equipment)
- Transfer of Oligosaccharides - consideration of the impact of oligosaccharides on boiling house recovery and ways to mitigate the impact
- Tube Tomography - development of a conductance tomography technique to visualise massecuite boiling in pan tubes