ASSESSING THE PROCESSABILITY OF SUGARCANE VARIETIES
The Sugar Milling Research Institute (SMRI) is developing methods to characterise the processability of sugarcane, particularly pre-release varieties from the South African Sugarcane Research Institute’s (SASRI) breeding programme. The pith/fibre ratio and colour are presently used to characterise the processability of sugarcane; however, further parameters are required to obtain a better understanding of how a particular variety would behave during processing, particularly in the front end of the factory. A number of methods have been investigated; these include the use of a stereomicroscope to identify pith and fibre, an impact test method and a percolation test method. Each method is described and test results obtained on selected varieties are given. The suitability and feasibility of each of the different methods is discussed.
The development of an automated pith-fibre separator for the cane sugar industry.
The need to determine accurate pith-fibre ratios in cane prompted the design and development of a fully automated apparatus that separates pith, fibre and sand from a sample of shredded cane or bagasse. With the continuous introduction of new cane varieties into the sugar industry, a quick and simple method of categorising these components is useful as they impact on diffuser operations, e.g. percolation rates. The equipment has been tested on shredded cane and bagasse from various factories and on various cane varieties from the South African Sugar Association Experiment Station. The results show that the apparatus gives excellent repeatability in terms of pith and fibre quantities for the same batch of sample. The poster describes the advantages of the new method over the old method of separation. Results include data and comments obtained from tests on 10 different cane varieties.
Instrumentation and Automated Photometric Titration Procedure for Total Acidity Determination in Red Wine Employing a Multicommuted Flow System
An automated procedure for photometric titration of red wine and associated instrumentation is described. The procedure was based on the flow-batch approach implemented employing multicommutation. The photometric detection was carried out using a homemade LED-based photometer. The mixing device, LED, and photodetector were attached to the titration chamber in order to form a compact and small-sized unit. The flow system comprised an automatic injector and three-way solenoid valves, which were controlled by a microcomputer through an electronic interface card. The software, written in Quick BASIC 4.5, was designed with abilities to accomplish all steps of the titration procedure including data acquisition and real-time processing to decide about the course of titration in the following step and so forth, until the titration endpoint was reached. The usefulness of the proposed titration system was demonstrated by analyzing red wine samples. When results were compared with those obtained using the AOAC reference method, no significant difference was observed at the 95% confidence level. A relative standard deviation of ca  2% (n=9 ) was obtained when processing a typical red wine sample containing 7.3 gl -1 total acidity expressed as tartaric acid.