Pilot plant installation for the purification of raw juice – Part I: Design and operation

A pilot plant for the purification of raw juices was designed and built. The plant was composed of the essential units (main and auxiliary equipment) allowing the complete purification of the juices. Because of its versatility and transport facility, it was possible to carry out the treatment of sugar beet from different zones, modifying not only the operating conditions but also the purification scheme. This paper describes the installation and operating procedure.

A mathematical treatment of the results obtained in the pilot plant was carried out, in order to calculate the dispersion of the experimental data. Moreover, a statistical treatment involving variance analysis was made to determine whether data resulting from different operating conditions were significantly different or not.