Development of a linear crystal growth approach*

The fine control of the mother liquor saturation is key to efficient crystal production. Over many years the industry has developed several methods to approximate the mother liquor conditions across the total cycle of a batch strike. Both total massecuite ds content and mother liquor ds content have been used individually to control the degree of supersaturation indirectly, but neither method can accurately guarantee control of crystal growth in isolation. It is the interaction between both these ds content measurements that can be used to portray the bigger picture of how the crystals are growing.

This study, over the 2016/17 beet campaign at the Wissington sugar factory, reports on the investigation into how combining the output from a microwave meter and a refractometer can be used effectively to improve crystal growth within a batch evaporating crystallizer.