BEET SUGAR.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3776, 3 April 1891, Page 2

BEET SUGAR.

HOW BEET SUGAR IS MADE* BY THE DIFFUSION PROCESS. - ... ■ v ~. • _:■_ i-J '■ ■■■ •., .. : i f.„ "The News can perhaps give a better dea of the " diffusion" process of sugar-making employed by the Oxhards, and of what the new factory ait Norfolk will by inviting its readers to follow the beets from the farmer's waggons and cars, through the various processes, until the beautiful granulated sugar drops in three grades of fineness into bags or barrels ready for the table or otherwise. The beets are stored in huge bins, with a Y-shaped bottom terminating abruptly over a canal that runs along its entire length, the bottom being composed ot short planks which can be removed when it is desired to let the beets drop down into the canal, As wanted, the short planks are lifted up, and the beets dropdown into the canal. A rapid stream of water floats them along soaking and "washing th6in as they go, until they reach the building. Here they are dipped eut by a great bucket-wheel which spills the water back into the canal, and carries the beet up and drops them upon a chute, which takes them through the wall of the main building and into one end of a large cistern, say three feet deep and wide, lu this a shaft with wooden arms, set in a spiral, stirs the beets in- the water and keeps moving them toward the other end. Here a broad-bladed screw, set slanting, lifts the beet out of the water; carries them inside an immense cylinder, which gives them many whirls in the water and drops them out at its elevated end. Next they pass over a long platform made up of cylinders covered with stiff bristles revolving in opposite directions. These brush out the lasi vestige of soil in the depressions of the beets as the boots glide over them and they drop off clean into a chute which carries them through a wall and lands them in a perpendicular elevator with backets which carries the beets to the top of the main room, where a chute conducts them into a receptacle, standing on scales, which tips them out as of ten as 2200 pounds drop in. Thence they slide into the mill, which cuts them, a ton in three minutes, into little corrugated strips as large as a hen's quill, and two to four inches long. These strips are called "cossetts," a technical French name which answers as well as any, If ground fine or into thin shavings they would pack' in the diffusion oells and not let the water run through freely. Next they slide into the diffusion cells, which may be.three or four feet in diameter, and eight or ten feet high, and hold one to one and a half ton of pulped beets. A number of these cells arranged and connected with each other is called, a diffusion battery, just as several cups used in galvanic electricity are called a battery. The successive cells are usually numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Each cell has a cap, or cover, which can' be turned to one side, or.be closed ,air-tight when put in place, with rudder under the outter rim, and brought down with a powerful leyer screw. The flat bottom is similarly closed, bu.t hasva false bottom a little &bave it—a strong copper plate full of fine holes. Ametal hot-water pipe enters the top jußt below the cover. Another similar pipo below runs out from the open space between the bottom and the perforated false bottom. This [ascends, and enters the top of cell No.

2, and in doing so passes through a steam pipe or cheßt. From Nov 2 a similar pipe runs to No. through any number of cells in' the battery. The tops of the;cells being | opened, then are filled with the cossetts, or strips of beets, and the covers are fastened down. Hot water is then let in through the pipe, the; required" pressure'B*eing obtained by placing the hob-water tank at any desired height. As will be seen, the hot .water, passes, down through., the contents of cell 1; then out at the bottom and up over into the top of No. 2, and down through its ..con. tents, and so on through the other cells. The water," being cooled "in passing through the material, is heated in the steam chests, In practice, thermometers on these indicate by a dial on the outside when the liquid is on the desired temperature; 1 and the attendant turns the steam on or off from any steam-chest as needed. The same water passes through ell the jells, often obtaining all the sugar it can dissolve before reaching'the last one. By the time ten or twelve, successiye waters ha?e passed through cell No. 1, all the sugar is extracted, its bottom is opened, the - exhausted*, cossetts are dropped into a large receptaole below, and new material put in. The fresh-water inlet pipe is changed to No. 2, and No. 1 becomes No. 12, or the last of the series, the saturated juioe leaving this. Cell i No. 2 having adready 11 doses of water passed through it, the ~ first supply of fresh water passing through it removes its last vestige of sugar. It is then refilled with fresh pulp, and becomes No. 12 of the series, No. 1, becoming No. 11., So the process goes on round and round. The sugarsaturated liquid from the diffusion battery and its receiving-tank is carried into great tallt anks, in which the sweet liquid is mixed with milk of lime, which unites with and destroys native acids in the beets, and other impurities. After awhile the carbonic-aoid gas which was caught from the kilns which burn the lime on the spot (outßide), to make the milk of lime with, is let in through the liquid, and unites with and ' solidifies any excess of lime not already solidl fied. This liquid is. then carried ofl into the filter room, where: it : passes through a remarkable series of niters which removes the lime and othei impurities. The clear liquid-looking like thin molasses then flows'' dowr into the shorter, tanks, where a little more lime is added to remove an] acids escaping the first liming. It ii then again pumped to a set of clear filters in the filtering room, anc comes back into the main room to b< pumped as required into the grea condensing boilers, four' in number The great air-pump removes the aii and steam produced inside the firs boiler, so that the liquid boils dowt very rapidly at a low temperature 125 to UO Fah. After partial condensation the liquid passes to thi second for further concentration ; thet into" the third and finally into the fourth. The heat and pressure o each succeeding boiler are regulatec to the increasing density of thi syrup. From the last condenser, thi concentrated syrup passes into largi reservoir tanks, and is next pumpec into the " vacuum pans " which an . really great air-tight, upright cylinder from which air-pumps exhaust thi rising steam. In ihese vacuum pani , the syrup becomes ai^thick mass b sugar crystals and .molasses. ~ Fron these, buckets carry the mass and drop it into the "centrifugals,'' Thesi are icon, cylinders, ~aay 3ft high ant 4ft in diameter, the outer iron coveret with fine brass wire cloth. Fart an working while the others are being . emptied and re-supplied. They revolve about 1000 times a minute, the outei run travelling IQ.OOO to 12,000 feet •or over two - miles-' a; minute! The sugar flies against the outside, and it two or three minutes allithe mollasses is thrown, through the. wire gauze and drops into a receptacle below,* to be further treated and concentrated, and to produce _, another lot ol crystallized sugar? The sugar, now white, is sprayed with;a forcible, jet of mixed air and cold water, all oi which flies through the guaze, leaving the sugar a mass of clean white grains, a trifle damp.'' The bottom is opened, the sugar drops into a receptaole below, whence it is taken by a screw elevator into the drying-room. Here is a 80-ieet-long revolving cylinder, 5 or 6 feet in diameter, sloping downward. Its inner surface is full of little shelves, while in the centre is a small cylinder kept warm with steam inside of it. As the sugar is brought up from the centrifugals, it drops into the elevated ends of the great cylinder. It is. picked'up by the little shelves, and when they come around to the top, (ata 'the cylinder slowly revolves) they drop the sugar off upon the inner warm cylinder, which dnes it, and it falls oft to "be picked up by other shelves and carried away again. As this cylinder, stands sloping, the "dry sugar works down toward the far open end. This end' terminates in a rim of fine brass wire, next to which is one of a coarser ineih. All the fine grain sugar, composing a great deal of it, now entirely dry, falls through, the fine wire and goes down a chute' into barrels or bags in the shipping-room below. The next grade in fineness passes through the next screen, and falls down another chute. The coarsest greins fall out of the end into a third chute,

An interesting arrangement is tbe current of air sucked through the long cylinder from the far end, which takes up most vapour from the drying sugar and somh fine sugar dust. This air is driven through a long room with partitions nearly across, firstJroui one Bide and then from the other, twenty or thirty of them. These check and cool the current of air, and all the fine sugar dust drops en the floor as pure sugar flour. It is usually redissolved and concentrated, and crystallised into coarser grains through the centrifugals, so .nothing is lost. Even the molasses is mainly worked into sugar unless, it, shall be worth more in. the syrup form. . ( , [To indicate' som'etning in regard to the present, demand for the seed of sugar beets, I will mention that, while visiting Ferry's immense seedhouae in Detroit, I saw stacked 'qpin onelof their great rooms such a vast quantity of seeds in bags that I asked the guide in astonishment what it was for which there could be such a demand. '■'' He toll me that it was sugat-bk'et- seed from France, and that they had just put in two shiploads. We have .for several years past raised the beets, on our own ground, just for the fun of it. As visitors, go through our fields I frequently cut off a piece of beet, and cut. it into little strips, and pass it around. The visitors always make exclamations of surprise. The real sugar beet, in the right kind, oksoil, is almost as sweet as the licorije-root which children get at the stores.- No wonder they get sugar from it in immense quantities by simply washing it ont from the beets with pure water'.' by the diffusion process, to plainly described, above.]