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ARTICLE
Solar Thermal Heating and Freeze Concentration for Non-Centrifugal Sugar Production: Design and Performance Analysis
Louis Francois Marie1,*, Sunkara Prudhvi Raj2, Policherla Venkata Sai3, Tara MacLeod1, Morapakala Srinivas2, K. Srinivas Reddy3, Tadhg Seán O’Donovan4
1 Institute of Mechanical, Process, and Energy Engineering, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland
2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Birla Institute of Technology & Science Pilani, Hyderabad, India
3 Heat Transfer and Thermal Power Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India
4 Institute of Mechanical, Process, and Energy Engineering, Heriot-Watt University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
* Corresponding Author: Louis Francois Marie. Email:
Energy Engineering 2020, 117(5), 323-342. https://doi.org/10.32604/EE.2020.011035
Received 15 April 2020; Accepted 03 July 2020; Issue published 07 September 2020
Abstract
Non-centrifugal cane sugar (NCS), known as Jaggery, is a form of unre-
fined sugar which contains molasses. The integration of renewable energy
resources in the production of NCS, have been analysed. The work investigates
the energy requirements of a system incorporating a freeze-concentrator and a
solar thermal heater to reduce the reliance on the combustion of bagasse or other
fuels in a Jaggery production process. Depending on the extent to which freeze concentration can be incorporated into the process, results show that the minimum theoretical energy required to produce Jaggery can be reduced by 91.30% overall.
Although difficult in practice, this theoretical analysis demonstrates that the integration of freeze concentration close to the eutectic limit of concentration has significant
advantages. For optimal configuration and ideal operation of the system the analysis
reports a requirement of approximately 3.8 MJ to produce a kilogram of Jaggery
from cane juice. When typical process efficiencies (furnace, boiling pan, solar thermal collector, and chiller) are included, the energy required ranged from 4.8–5.2 MJ/
kg Jaggery. This represents a potential energy saving in excess of 38 MJ/kg Jaggery
and a fuel saving of more than 2 kg of bagasse/kg of Jaggery produced.
Keywords
Cite This Article
Marie, L. F., Raj, S. P., Sai, P. V., MacLeod, T., Srinivas, M. et al. (2020). Solar Thermal Heating and Freeze Concentration for Non-Centrifugal Sugar Production: Design and Performance Analysis.
Energy Engineering, 117(5), 323–342. https://doi.org/10.32604/EE.2020.011035
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