Sugar Cane

Sugarcane is a perennial grass in the Poaceae family and is cultivated in tropical and sub-tropical regions for the sucrose that is found in its stems. It requires a frost-free climate with sufficient rainfall during the growing season to make full use of the plant's great growth potential. The crop is harvested mechanically or by hand, chopped into lengths and conveyed rapidly to the processing plant. Here it is either milled and the juice extracted with water or the sugar is extracted by diffusion. The juice is then purified with lime and heated to kill enzymes.

The resulting thin syrup is then concentrated in a series of evaporators and then further water is removed by way of evaporation process in vacuum containers The resulting supersaturated solution is seeded with sugar crystals and the sugar crystallizes out and is separated from the fluid and dried. The crystals of raw sugar have a sticky brown coating and can either be used as they are or can be bleached by sulphur dioxide or treated in a carbonation process to produce a whiter product.