THE CUBA REVIEW 



31 



THE SUGAR INDUSTRY 



PLANTATION WHITE SUGAR 



^\There is no doubt, that one effect of the 

 war will be to enormously stimulate the pro- 

 duction of what is known as plantation white 

 sugar, in contradistinction to the white sugar 

 made by refineries. The want of power in 

 British refineries, which can only cope with 

 50 per cent of what is wanted in the form of 

 white sugar by the British consumer, led, be- 

 fore the War, to the introduction of German 

 and Austrian white sugar to an enormous ex- 

 tent. Thus in 1913 no less than 660,000 tons 

 of white sugar came from these countries in 

 one form or another. It cannot for one 

 moment be thought that this sugar will come 

 again into this comatry, if it comes at all, on 

 the same terms as the produce of our own 

 colonies, or even of neutral countries. The 

 gap will therefore have to be filled either, as 

 at present, with American refined and white 

 plantation sugar from the Java factories, or 

 else with preferentially treated sugar from 

 our existing exporting colonies, or from 

 colonies which, perfectly adpated for the 

 manufacture of sugar, have not dared to in- 

 itiate its production in the face of the cheap- 

 ened-by-protection products of Austria and 

 Germany. 



At the present time the main countries 

 making white sugar direct from the cane are 

 the Brazils, Louisiana, Java, and Mauritius. 

 The Brazil product, which is used entirely for 

 local purposes, is manufactured in such a 

 manner, and is of such a character, that the 

 process of manufacture employed hardly en- 

 ters into the general question. For all prac- 

 tical purposes, therefore, the three other 

 countries, Louisiana, Java, and Mauritius, 

 may be regarded as the present homes of 

 plantation white sugar. 



The successful manufacture of plantation 

 white sugar depends upon two factors — the 

 clarification and the treatment of the masse- 

 cuites. 



As regards clarification, the process em- 

 ployed may be divided into two classes — ■ 

 those dependent on "sulphitation," or the 

 use of sulphurous acid to neutralize the lime, 

 and those in which carbonic acid is used for 

 this purpose, lime in white sugars, as well as 

 ail other sugars, being the basis of clarifica- 

 tion. 



In the typical sulphitation process the juice 

 is treated, when cold with quantities of lime 

 larger than would be used in the manufactiu'e 

 of sugar for refining purposes, the excess of 

 which is neutralized by the introduction of 

 the gas formed by burning sulphm- in the air, 

 the body formed being converted into sul- 

 phiu'ous acid on contact with the juice. 

 Sometimes the lime is added first, sometimes 

 the sulphur gas; but in each case the resultant 

 effect is neutralization, or nearly so, a slight 

 acidity being sometimes left. The juice is 

 now raised to boiling point, boiled vigorously, 

 and subsided, the clear liquor going to the 

 evaporator, and the mud, as usual, to the 

 filter presses. 



There are several variants of the above 

 process. It may be that the settling of the 

 mud is facilitated by the addition of phosphor- 

 ic acid, or phosphate of soda, to the juice, of 

 the clear liquor is slightly acidified with 

 phosphoric acid and cleaned in "ehminators." 

 A common system also is to boil the sjTup, 

 subside it, and sulphur slightly; while a 

 modern method of sulphitation — the Bach 

 process, which is highly spoken of — provides 

 for the treatment of the juice in the first 

 instance with only so much lime and sulphur, 

 or lime alone, as would be required for ordin- 

 ary clarification, the determining treatment 

 being applied to the syrup, which is heavily 

 limed, sulphured, boiled and filtered. This 

 treatment causes the s\Tup to become easily 

 filterable. The clear syrup is again slightly 

 sulphured, so as to give it the necessary 

 acidity for bright sugar. In Louisiana also, 

 the clarified juice is generally filtered through 

 bag filters, and in some cases continuous set- 

 tling of the clarified juice is done. 



In the other class of clarification for white 

 sugar, the carbonatation class, carbonic acid, 

 as already mentioned, is the medium used for 

 neutralizing the lime. In single carbonata- 

 tion, the lime, in large quantity — as much as 

 lioWi per cent, on the canes being used — is 

 added to the cold juice, and after the tem- 

 perature of the juice has been raised to be- 

 tween 120 deg. F. and 130 deg. F., carbonic 

 acid gas is forced into the juice until the juice 

 is neutral. It is now boiled and filtered 

 through filtering presses, the clear juice 

 going to the evaporator. 



