Sucrose Losses in the Late Season.
In the late season, the range of FES target pH values was from pH 5.9 to 6.9. Up until the 2001 grinding season, many Sucrose Loss Calculations.
The dramatic, seasonal effects of changing the target FES pH on calculations of % sucrose losses, based on the formula of Schaffler et al. (9), are shown in Table 3, as well as the lbs of sucrose lost per ton of cane. As expected, the lower the pH, the higher the losses are and vice versa.Although a FES target pH of 5.6 is not targeted in factories because of associated high hydrolysis (Table 3), it sometimes occurs when deteriorated cane is being processed or factory problems occur. In 2000, many Louisiana factories had a target CJ pH of _6.7 to give a FES pH of _6.0, although pH values of 5.9 in the FES often occurred (17). Results in Table 3 show that by increasing the target FES pH to at least pH 6.3 causes a marked decrease in losses, particularly in the mid and late seasons. Sugar industry personnel in the United States are concerned that increasing target pH values and lime usage will cause more scale, but the worst scale to remove and the one that reduces heat transfer the most (3) is silicate, which is mostly associated with soil in the cane supply.