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Modeling and Optimization of the Sugar Extraction Process

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 International Journal of Food
Engineering
Volume 5, Issue 4 2009 Article 13

Modeling and Optimization of the Sugar

Extraction Process
Rahmat Sotudeh-Gharebagh∗ Hani Shamekhi†
Navid Mostoufi‡ Hamid Reza Norouzi∗∗

∗
University of Tehran, sotudeh@ut.ac.ir
†
University of Tehran, narsis h@yahoo.com
‡
University of Tehran, mostoufi@ut.ac.ir
∗∗
University of Tehran, hrnorouzi@ut.ac.ir

Copyright 2009
c The Berkeley Electronic Press. All rights reserved.
 Modeling and Optimization of the Sugar
Extraction Process∗
Rahmat Sotudeh-Gharebagh, Hani Shamekhi, Navid Mostoufi, and Hamid Reza
Norouzi

Abstract

In this work, a mathematical model is first developed for the sugar extraction process under
steady state conditions. The process takes place in a vertical tower in which hot water and beet
cossettes are entered counter currently and the juice is enriched with sugar. The amount of sugar
extracted and also the amount of sugar loss at the exit would be increased by an increase in the
tower length, the beet residence time or the amount of fresh water consumed. However, this would
lead to an increase in the amount of non-sugars within the extractor which is highly undesirable
and requires much more in operating costs. To avoid this, the tower length and beet residence
time should be at their optimal values in addition to draft, which is the percent ratio of raw juice
extracted to the beet processed. This study determines these optimal values in a way to minimize
the total operating costs based on the mathematical model using the genetic algorithm method.
The results of this study can be used as a framework to optimize the performance of industrial
extractors.

KEYWORDS: steady state modeling, sugar extraction, brix, purity, draft, pulp

∗
The authors really appreciate the help of Mr. Maleki, the head of the Qazvin Sugar Factory for
providing the plant data.
 Sotudeh-Gharebagh et al.: Modeling and Optimization of the Sugar Extraction Process

1- Introduction
One of the methods for extracting the desired intracellular components from plant
tissues is the solid-liquid extraction (Byron Bird et al, 2002 & Simeonov et al,
1999). Extraction of sugar first evolved from the batch method, using beet
gratings in the process but later it lead to the more methodical counter-current
diffusion which is now practiced in most of the extraction units in sugar factories.
During the diffusion or the extraction process, the cells of the sugar beet cossettes
are denaturated to give off the sugar using water (BMA, 2006); the extraction
liquid used in this process is water. As the cell walls are impermeable to sucrose
molecules, they have to be denatured prior to extraction (BMA, 2006 & Van der
Poel et al, 1998). Part of the cell walls is mechanically destroyed when slicing the
beets. However, most of the denaturing work is done when exposing the cells to a
pre heating short-time thermal action before entering the extraction column
(BMA, 2006 & Van der Poel et al, 1998).
Proper extraction of intracellular components in a solid-liquid extraction
process requires the denaturation of cell membranes in the solid phase, an
operation customarily conducted thermally. In this method, high temperature of
liquid phase causes disintegration of the cell membranes, thus permitting the
intracellular components to be released and extracted by the liquid phase. Among
the drawbacks, of such operations is the thermal degradation of product properties
and degraded juice quality. The best temperature range for the solid-liquid
extraction is 70-75°C. If the temperature is below the lower range, the amount of
sugar losses in the exit pulp would increase. However if the temperature is more
than upper range (> 80°C) the amount of colloid substances such as proteins,
pectin substances and other non sugars entering the raw juice would also be
increased. This leads to the less raw juice purity, more difficult purification
process and more raw juice viscosity, which is very much unfavorable especially
in the evaporation units (Van der Poel et al, 1998). Therefore, as far as the
operating conditions such as pH are properly set according to their relevant
effects, the best temperature range is 70-75°C.
In general, the amount of components released and transferred from the solid
phase into the external juice are highly dependent on the diffusion coefficients of
the soluble constituents within the solid phase, the corresponding barriers and the
operating conditions (Byron Bird et al, 2002). Therefore, there have been
numerous studies to develop some other newer technologies of extraction based
not on thermal methods. Among these techniques in food processing and
intracellular components extraction that has seen a great amount of research
interest in recent decades is the use of Pulsed Electric Field (PEF) (Jemai and
Vorobeiv, 2003, & 2006). When exposed to an electric field of sufficiently high
intensity, the cell membrane can be temporarily destabilized or irreversibly

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 International Journal of Food Engineering, Vol. 5 [2009], Iss. 4, Art. 13

ruptured (El-Belghiti et al, 2005). There are also some other physical, chemical
and biological methods that have been proposed for sugar extraction in order to
avoid the disadvantages of cell wall alteration by heat (e.g. alkaline processing,
reduction of particles, addition of enzymes, etc), however, none of them has yet
been able to replace thermal leaching processes(El-Belghiti et al, 2005).
In the case of sugar extraction from beet, the beet cossettes become into
contact with hot water through a continuous counter-current process to extract
their sugar content (BMA, 2006). The entire process takes place in a tower
known as diffuser or extractor. There are different types of beet extractors based
on different principles and are generally constructed by the same suppliers as
sugar diffusers (DDS, BMA, De Smet) (Simeonov et al, 1999). Although non-
vertical extractors like DDS systems also exist, the most commonly used
extraction systems are still the vertical towers. In the BMA vertical tower, the
cossettes enter the tower through the bottom, as shown in Figure 1, and are
transported upward by mechanical elements on a rotary shaft. Hot water flows
down through the cossettes carrying the sucrose and other water-soluble organic
and inorganic substances washed out of the sugar beets. The wet pulp (extracted
cossettes) is further pressed in order to remove some of the remaining water and
sugar. The water containing sugar extracted by the presses is added to the fresh
water. This procedure allows extracting approximately 98% of the sugar content
of the beet (ABB technical information, 2004) and therefore, the efficiency of the
extraction has a great effect on the whole sugar production process.

Extraction
5
Tower
4

Press
1 3

2
6

Figure 1 Typical sugar extraction tower 1) raw juice 2) cossettes 3) press water 4) fresh
water 5) wet pulp 6) press pulp

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 Sotudeh-Gharebagh et al.: Modeling and Optimization of the Sugar Extraction Process

To be efficient from both economy and energy point of view, an extraction

plant has to yield a raw juice of high purity, high dry substance content and low
temperature. Countercurrent flow of cossettes and extraction liquid, complete
press water recirculation and low extraction water rates are the main factors
affecting the quality and quantity of the raw juice. From the descriptions given
above, it can be concluded that the more sugar is extracted from the beet
cossettes, the more will be the overall efficiency of the above mentioned
processes. In other word, the extraction section can be considered as the heart of
the sugar industry (Shamekhi et al, 2006a & 2006b).
Despite the significance of the extraction, there have been little modeling
attempts in this field. There have recently been a number of studies conducted on
modeling and simulation of the different vegetable oil extraction process (Bravi et
al, 2002, & Reverchon and Marrone, 2001). Of course, there might be some
similarities between modeling conditions of the vegetable oil extraction process
and that of sugar extraction from the beet sugar but not much attempt was done
specifically in the case of sugar extraction modeling and simulation. Although
some models for inclined extraction towers exist, vertical extraction towers have
not been investigated. There are a few existing solid-liquid extractor simulators
like the ones developed by the Armfield Co. (Armfield Ltd, 2007). However,
thermal leaching extractors and the unit operations dealing with solids are rarely
included in available commercial process simulators (Pramparo et al, 2003).There
are some computer programs, e.g., Sugars TM, to simulate the refining processes
for sugar industries. A sugar factory with bio-ethanol production has been
modeled in this program by Henke et al, 2005. And as far as process optimization
is concerned, an energy optimization has been done based on cooling
crystallization of concentrated raw juice by Grabowski et al, 2001. However, it
seems necessary to develop a simulation tool for this particular application in
order to control and monitor the process. This will enable the process engineers
and operators to impose changes in the simulated process and investigate their
effects on the process performance and quality indexes. Considering the above
facts, it seems necessary to develop the optimization model for this particular
application in order to evaluate the optimum parameters and conditions necessary
for the proper operation of the industrial sugar.

2- Mathematical model
The modeling is based on the following hypotheses:
1. Since the extraction process occurs in a temperature range of 69-73 ºC, the
temperature was assumed constant in order to calculate the physical
properties.

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 International Journal of Food Engineering, Vol. 5 [2009], Iss. 4, Art. 13

2. The beet cossettes only contain four main components including sugar, non-
sugar compounds, water and marc. The latter one is the non-diffusing
component remaining in the solid phase only.
3. Physical properties including the pH value are assumed constant throughout
the process.
4. The mass transfer resistance in the liquid phase is neglected as compared with
the mass transfer resistance in the solid phase (Treybal, 1982).
5. The material transport with axial diffusion is negligible as compared to that of
bulk flow. This hypothesis is justified by calculating the convective flow and
the axial diffusion in the column. For the typical flow rates in the tower, the
amount of Peclet Number is greater than 2 which indicate that the amount of
axial diffusion is negligible as compared to that of bulk.
Based on the above assumptions, the material balance over the differential
volume shown in Figure 2 could be written as (Constantinides and Mostoufi,
1999):
•
V (CL ,i Z − CL ,i Z + dZ
) + kc a (Ci∗ − CL,i ) Adzε − k1CL,i Adzε = 0
(1)
Bulk flow Inter-phase mass transfer invert sugar reaction
i=NS, S, W

where NS and S are, respectively, non-sugar and sugar compounds in the raw
juice as well as the solid phase. Dividing the equation by Adzε and simplifying
yields:

dCL ,i
α − β (Ci ∗ − CL ,i ) + k1CL ,i = 0 (2)
dz

Where:
•
V
α= (3)
Aε
β = kc a

The initial and boundary conditions for Eq. 2 are:

at z = CL,i =0 (4)

The first term in Eq. 1 is the convective mass transfer of components due to
the bulk motion of the juice flow. The second term of this equation represents the
inter-phase transport of components from the solid to liquid phase. Moreover, the

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 Sotudeh-Gharebagh et al.: Modeling and Optimization of the Sugar Extraction Process

last term in the equation shows the loss of sucrose due to the hydrolysis reaction
occurred in the liquid phase. In the extraction process, the sugar and non-sugar
content of beets decrease as the cossettes move from the front to tail of the tower.
The decline in the sugar and non-sugar content of beets in every control volume
of tower equals to the amount of sugar and non-sugar extracted from beets.
Because of the inter-relation of the solid phase concentration and Eq. 2, the
concentration of the components in the solid phase was iteratively calculated
through the tower as well as liquid phase.
The overall mass transfer coefficient, kC, the invert sugar reaction constant,
k1, and other property evaluations are discussed in the following sections.

C*, out C L, in

dz
ε

Raw juice
C*, in C L, out

Figure 2 Differential volume of the extraction column for the model material balance

2.1- Physical properties

Physical properties of the materials needed for modeling were evaluated from
proper correlations described in this section. These properties include mass
transfer coefficients and reaction rate constant.
Since the extraction of sugar from beet takes place during the inter-phase
transport, the effect of both solid and liquid phases should be considered in this
process. The scheme of this process is show in Figure 3. The diffusing
components in the extraction process must overcome two resistances in solid and
liquid phases. The first resistance, the solid resistance, is exerted by fiber matrix
(marc) of beet slowing down the velocity of components in solid phase and while
the second resistance is the liquid phase resistance. Due to the nature of the solid
phase, the transport of components in this phase is the controlling step in the mass

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 International Journal of Food Engineering, Vol. 5 [2009], Iss. 4, Art. 13

transfer process and thus the overall mass transfer coefficient may become equal
to the solid phase resistance. These resistances are calculated by the following
equations.

Beet Liquid Bulk

Sugar Sugar

Non-sugar Non-sugar

Water Water

Solid
Resistance Liquid film
Resistance

Figure 3 Schematics of resistances encountered during mass transfer from beet tissue to the
extraction liquid

Internal mass transfer coefficient (Mesbahi, 2004, & McCabe Warren et al, 2001):
6 De
k int ernal = (5)
Dp

External mass transfer coefficient (Bravi et al, 2002 & Van der Poel et al, 1998):

Sh × DAB
kexternal = (6)
xBM × LC

S h = (1 .09 / ε )(R e Sc )1 / 3 (7)

In these equations, De is the diffusion coefficient of sucrose in the solid phase

of beet sugar, which indicates the internal resistance to the mass transfer in the
system. Different values of this quantity have been proposed in the literature
(Jemai and Vorobiev 2003, Mesbahi, 2004, & McGinnis, 1999) which in this
study according to the operating conditions it was considered to be 2.6e-11 m2/s.
The effective diffusivity of sucrose in the liquid juice, DAB, depends on many
factors such as the viscosity, soluble components and the operating temperature of
the extraction column. In 70 °C the effective diffusivity is considered to be 1.24e-9
m2/s (Mesbahi, 2004 & Van der Poel et al, 1998).
Sugar extraction is carried out in acidic conditions in which sugar disappears
by hydrolysis to produce invert sugars, which are classified as non-sugar
components. The hydrolysis reaction which is also known as sugar inversion is:

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 Sotudeh-Gharebagh et al.: Modeling and Optimization of the Sugar Extraction Process

Sucrose + H 2 O ⇒ Glucose + Fructose (8)

The above reaction has a first order kinetic and is dependent on temperature and
pH according to the following rate expression (Pramparo et al, 2003):

5670
log k1 = 16.91- - pH (9)
T

The choice of an appropriate pH value depends on the following factors:

1. The pH value should be low enough to prevent microbiological developments
in the extracted juice.
2. The pH value should be high enough to prevent sucrose hydrolysis and
minimize the corrosion in the tower.
According to the literature Van der Poel et al, 1998 in pH value of about 4.5
the minimum sucrose hydrolysis reaction exists in the extraction tower as well as
the less pectic substances solubility in the juice. Considering the El-Belghiti et al,
2005 and the Qazvin beet sugar plant data in Iran , the appropriate pH value for
extraction lies between the range of 4- 5.5. Therefore, the value of 4.5 is used in
the present work.
There are three indexes used in the sugar industry, i.e., Brix, purity and draft.
Brix is, by definition, the amount of sugar and non-sugar components in the
effluent juice which is sometimes known as total dry soluble substance. Purity is
the ratio of sugar to sugar plus non-sugar components and is sometimes called
quotient. Brix and Purity are the most commonly used properties for determining
the quality of the effluent raw juice and are defined by the following relationships.

Bx = S ( Sugar percent in juice) + NS ( None sugar percent in juice) (10)

S
Q= × 100 (11)
S + NS

Draft is the mass or volumetric (is not common) ratio of the juice water used
in the extraction column to the amount of beet sugar introduced to the tower
which is defined as follows (ABB technical information, 2004):

mass or volum of the juice in the diffusion process

Draft = (12)
mass or volum of the beet in the process

The alternative equation for the Draft is shown below by applying sugar mass
balance, which is identical to Eq. 12.

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 International Journal of Food Engineering, Vol. 5 [2009], Iss. 4, Art. 13

Sugar content of beet -sugar loss

Draft=
Sugar content of row juice (13)

The optimization of extraction process should be considered in specifying the

optimal values for draft to minimize the energy and operating costs as well as
making the increase of the capacity of diffusers possible (Mathlouthi, 2004).
Also, by finding an optimal value for the known sugar losses it is possible to
increase the amount of sugar extracted and therefore increase the purity which has
a great economical effect on the whole process of sugar production.

3- Model Optimization
The objective of this study was to apply the model, whose development has been
outlined, to analyze the optimization issues relevant to an industrial extraction
tower. The main adjustable parameters in the model were the draft and the beet
sugar residence time or tower length. The objective function defined in this work
to evaluate the optimal values of the three above mentioned parameters was
equated to the total cost of the extraction process which is related to the column
costs, the cost of known sugar losses and the water consumption cost or the draft
in the extraction and evaporation units. The tower is made of carbon steel with no
special packing or trays. According to the material costs and installation costs
and considering to the cost indexes for year 2006 and the actual plant data, the
cost of tower per meter was calculated. Therefore it would be estimated as
follows (Peters Max and Timmerhaus, 2002):
Cost 1 = Le × (Cost of column per meter) (14)

Le is the effective contact length.

The amount of known sucrose loss is defined as the amount of sugar leaving
with the exit pulp imposing a cost according to the sugar price. With the data
from the actual plant, the cost being imposed by the sugar loss is calculated as
follows:

Cost 2= losses × Sugar price per kg (15)

The amount of water consumption or draft ratio affects the evaporation unit
of the sugar production plant. In this part of the process, after a heat transfer
between the juice and the steam returning from the power generators is done, a
portion of the juice water is evaporated and is then recovered in a condenser. In
such systems approximately each kilograms of steam entering the four-stage
evaporator would evaporate 2.376 kg of water from the juice (Mesbahi, 2004). A
material balance over the evaporation unit leads to the equation:

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 Sotudeh-Gharebagh et al.: Modeling and Optimization of the Sugar Extraction Process

min Bxin = mout Bxout (16)

Therefore, the ratio of the water evaporated is dependent on the amount of

Brix entering the evaporation unit to the amount of Brix leaving the unit. Brix is
a term showing the amount of sugars and non-sugars existing in the effluent juice.
This amount is related to the beet sugar quality entering the tower as well as the
extent of Sugar extraction. Therefore, according to the data from actual plants this
ratio is usually in a range that is estimated to be around 0.3.
Hence, according to the plant data in the evaporation system, the ratio of
water in the juice that should be evaporated to the total amount of juice entering
the evaporators is about 0.3. With a specific amount of draft used for a specific
extraction capacity, the corresponding cost function would be:

Cost 3 = steam cos t × draft × Column capacity × 0.3 (17)

If the costs are considered to be shown as follows:

X 1 = Cost of column per meter

X 2 = Price of sugar per Kilogram
X 3 = Cost of steam
And the total cost is considered to be the sum of all the costs discussed above:

F(x) = Total cost = Cost 1 + Cost 2 + Cost 3 (18)

Then the objective function to perform the optimization could now be defined
as the total cost as follows:

F(X) = Le X1 + Sugar losses ⋅ X 2 + Draft × Column Capacity × 0.3 X3 (19)

The goal is to minimize the function F(X). In industry, the percent of the
sugar that is presented in the raw juice after the extraction process should not be
greater than a specified value which is 86% (kg sugar /kg sugar and non-sugars)
(Bubnik et al, 1998). In order to reach such value by a material balance over the
extraction system it is possible to obtain a defined value for the known sugar
losses that exits with the wet pulp considering the required value for the purity.
Therefore, according to the actual plant data, the amount of sugar loss would be
0.3 % kg sugar/ 100 kg beet for a purity of 86% (Bubnik et al, 1998). In other
words, the constraint of the process would be:

Percent of sugar loss ≤ 0.3 (20)

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 International Journal of Food Engineering, Vol. 5 [2009], Iss. 4, Art. 13

Such approach to the problem is reasonable for achieving acceptable results

considering that the indexes mentioned before are very important in industry
because of their great influence on the efficiency and on the total cost of the
whole process.
The optimization problem was processed using the genetic algorithm (GA).
Genetic algorithm is emerging as a powerful alternative to the traditional
optimization methods, which are too restrictive for non-linear problems (see
Melanie, 1998 & Vose, 1999). This method of optimization was utilized in this
work to make sure that the global minimum of the function would be obtained and
that the model varying sensitivity to different parameters, such algorithm would
handle which causes nonlinearity in the problem. There are two main factors
affecting the efficiency of the extraction unit which can be controlled as the input
of the unit and are considered in this work, the draft and the tower length.
Therefore, the optimal values of these two parameters are considered to be
obtained. The objective function to gain these optimal values is the operation cost
as calculated in Eq. 19 which should be at its minimum. The results of this
process are discussed in the following section.

4- Results and discussion

The model equations were solved iteratively for an industrial extraction tower
using the fourth-order Rung-Kutta in order to obtain pulp and juice sugar content
and the results were compared with the corresponding plant data. A typical
composition of the beet is given in Table 1 (Mesbahi, 2004). The variation of the
rate constant of Eq. 9 with temperature and pH value is given in Table 2. It can
be seen in this table that the rate constant is increased with increasing in
temperature and is decreased with increasing in pH. According to the model
studied in this work, the effect of sucrose consumption due to reaction is quite
negligible in the system and it can simply be ignored. Figure 4 shows the sucrose
concentration profiles once considering the presence of the reaction, with the
value of 1.4e-6 s-1 for k1 in temperature of 70 C and PH of 4.5, and once with
neglecting it. As it is seen in Figure, the two curves have completely coincided.
This can be justified by Eq. 2 in which the value of β is much greater than k1
(β>> k1). Therefore, it can be concluded that the effect of sucrose reaction has no
significant effect in the considered operating conditions.

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 Sotudeh-Gharebagh et al.: Modeling and Optimization of the Sugar Extraction Process

Table 1 Typical composition of beet (Mesbahi, 2004 & Van der Poel et al, 1998)
Composition Wt. % (wet basis)

Sugar 15-18

Soluble Non-sugar 2-3

Water 75-77

Marc 4.5-5

Table 2 Variation of the rate constant of Eq. 9 with temperature and pH value
k (10-6 s-1)
T (ºC)
pH=4 pH=4.5
65 2.3 0.7
70 4 1.4
75 7 2.2

80
Sugar Concentration (kg/m3)

70

60

50

40 Without Reaction
With Reaction
30

20

10

0
0 5 10 15 20 25
Tower Length (m)

Figure 4 Sugar concentration versus tower length for two cases: without reaction and
with reaction
Input data and operating conditions for the industrial extraction tower are
given in Table 3. In the industrial vertical extraction towers, sampling could be
only done at the bottom of the tower where the juice leaves the equipment.
Therefore, sugar and non-sugar components could be measured only at the bottom
of the tower. Table 4 provides a comparison between the modeling results and
actual plant data where a satisfactory agreement could be observed.

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 International Journal of Food Engineering, Vol. 5 [2009], Iss. 4, Art. 13

The optimal values of tower length, the draft and the sugar losses were
calculated. The objective function to gain these optimal values is the operation
cost as calculated in Eq. 19, which should be at its minimum. There is also a main
constraint ruling the whole process that should be satisfied and that is the amount
of sugar losses, which should not be more than 0.3 percent. The optimization is
done with Genetic algorithm in which the values of L and Draft are calculated
while the cost is set to minimum. There is also a loop governing the whole
process to check on the constraint of the problem every time the optimization
process is done. The results of the optimization on the proposed extraction model
are brought in Table 5, which shows the values of the two considered
optimization parameters. It is noticed that in the optimum conditions the column
height is less than the actual height. However, the amount of Draft used in the
extraction process in increased so that the amount of sugar extracted does not
decrease. This has ultimately resulted in much less sugar losses than the actual
sugar loss and a lesser operating costs in the sugar beet plant.

Table 3 Typical operating for an industrial extractor (ABB technical information, 2004 &
BMA, 2006)
Parameter Description Unit Value
Draft Draft - 1.1
D Tower diameter m 6

Le Effective tower length m 19

Lt Total tower length m 23

MBeet Beet flow in tone/hr 100

pH Acidity index - 4.5

T Temperature ºC 70
•
V Liquid Flow m3/hr 65

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 Sotudeh-Gharebagh et al.: Modeling and Optimization of the Sugar Extraction Process

Table 4 Comparison between the model output and the plant data
Parameter Simulated value Actual data Error (%)
Juice Brix 17.62 17.60 0.11
Juice Purity 85.80 86.07 0.23
Sugar content of raw juice 15.12 15.15 0.20
Non-sugar content of raw juice 2.50 2.45 2.04

Sugar loss (kg/100kg beet) 0.25 0.30 16.60

Table 5 Optimal values compared to the actual plant values

Parameter Optimal value Plant value
Effective Tower length (m) 17 19
Draft 1.12 1.10
Sugar loss (kg/100 kg beet) 0.08 0.30

Table 6 shows a comparison between the model output with the optimal
values and the plant data. As seen in this Table, by using these optimal values the
percent of the sugar being extracted from the beet is increased while the percent
of non sugars being transferred to the raw juice was decreased so that their total
effect on purity has been very much favorable so that an increase in its value
could be observed in the table. On the other hand, it also resulted in a much less
sugar loss in the extraction unit. The optimal tower length determined through the
optimization process in this study is in consistence with the industrial extractor
design data considering the entrance and exist effects.

Table 6 Comparison between the model output with the optimal values and the plant data
Parameter optimum value Actual plant data
Juice Brix 17.75 17.82
Juice Purity 86.27 86
Sugar content of raw juice
15.31 15.15
(kg/100kg beet)
Non-sugar content of raw juice
2.44 2.67
(kg/100kg beet)
Sugar loss
0.08 0.3
(kg/100kg beet)

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 International Journal of Food Engineering, Vol. 5 [2009], Iss. 4, Art. 13

18

Sugar content of the juice ( kg/ 100 kg beet) 16

14
kc=2.0×10-7
kc=1.4×10-7
12

10
kc=1.0×10-7

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Tower Length (m)

Figure 5 Variation of sucrose concentration profile with respect to the value of mass transfer
coefficients

The concentration profiles of sucrose in the extraction tower are very

sensitive to the choice of diffusion coefficients. Figure 5 shows the variation of
sucrose concentration profile with respect to the value of mass transfer
coefficient. At the top of the tower where fresh water enters because of the higher
concentration differences, there is a higher driving force. Therefore, for the
calculated amount of overall mass transfer coefficient kC in this model, i.e. 1.4e-7
m/s as the juice moves toward the bottom, the driving force decreases and the
concentration of sugar that is extracted remains almost constant and reaches an
ultimate value. It can also be seen that in a specific tower length, with a very
small change in the amount of mass transfer coefficient, the concentration of
extracted sugar would reach a considerable change. For the beet given in Table1
and considering the operating conditions in Table 3, the values of internal mass
transfer coefficients and external mass transfer coefficients are found from Eqs. 6-
8. Since the packing of cossettes is usually about 650-700 kg/m3, the porosity of
the bed, ε, is estimated to be 0.3. The internal and external coefficients are found
to be 1.4×10-7 and 4.5×10-5 respectively and this justifies the assumption 4 that
the mass transfer resistance in the solid phase is the controlling step in the
extraction process. It is worthy to mention that since the operating conditions
such as the temperature and pH are considered constant throughout the tower
therefore, the amount of mass transfer coefficients is independent of the axial

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 Sotudeh-Gharebagh et al.: Modeling and Optimization of the Sugar Extraction Process

positions and they depend on the other factors that are explained in the parameters
evaluation part of the paper. However, in Figure 5 the amount of these
coefficients is calculated in different operating conditions to show how the
concentration profile changes according to such differences. The end effects of
the column were not included in this study.
The sensitivity analysis of the process parameters to the different values of
mass transfer coefficients is shown in Table 7. The Brix, sugar and non-sugar
content in the raw juice increase as the value of kC increases. The purity and sugar
loss are also increased as the value of kC decreases. The low value of kC may be
related to inadequate denaturation of cossettes which leads to less solid extraction
from beet cossettes during the process and more sugar loss. The high value of kC
represents that more cell walls degraded due to high extend of denaturation of
beet cossettes. This enhances the extraction of sugars as well as non-sugar
components and finally decreases the sugar loss and raw juice purity.

Table 7 Sensitivity analysis of process parameters to the different values of mass transfer
coefficient
Parameter kC = 1.0 ×10-7 m/s kC = 1.4 ×10-7 m/s kC = 2.0 ×10-7 m/s
Juice Brix 16.09 17.62 18.15
Juice Purity 85.89 85.80 84.8
Sugar content of raw juice 13.82 15.12 15.4
Non-sugar content of raw juice 2.27 2.5 2.75
Sugar loss (kg/100 kg beet ) 1.77 0.25 0.049

Table 8 Optimal condition of process parameters with different values of mass transfer
coefficient
Parameter kC = 1.0 ×10-7 m/s kC = 1.4 ×10-7 m/s kC = 2.0 ×10-7 m/s
Effective tower length (m) 24 17 13.5
Draft 1.16 1.12 1.10
Sugar loss (kg/100 kg beet) 0.3 0.08 0.17

Table 8 shows the optimal values of main economic parameters of the

process with different value of mass transfer coefficient. As seen in the table,
these all are sensitive to the value of kC, but among them the tower length posses
higher sensitivity. When kC is too low, the tower length have to increase to satisfy
the constraint of maximum sugar loss. For instance, for kC = 1.0×10-7 m/s, the
optimal values of these parameters shows that the capital costs and operating costs

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 International Journal of Food Engineering, Vol. 5 [2009], Iss. 4, Art. 13

both are high and the sugar loss is at maximum value of 0.3, which is not
favorable. At higher value of kC, these parameters are optimized in the more
acceptable ways. Therefore, it is concluded that the denaturation of beet cossettes
is a key parameter, which can affect the performance of the extraction process of
sugar from beet.
The relationship among juice draft, the residence time of beet sugars and
sucrose losses is illustrated in Figure 6. It is shown in this figure that in order to
have a specified amount of sugar loss, the increased amount of draft used in the
process would lead to a decrease in the extraction time and tower length. On the
other hand, in a specific extraction time, more fresh water (draft) used in the
system would ultimately lead to a decrease in the amount of sugar loss. In this
figure the effect of parameter draft can be seen on the system. As it can be seen
in this figure, the issue of the optimization is the possible trade-off between the
amount of draft and the extraction time while keeping the amount of known sugar
losses within a specified range which is economically acceptable. When the
tower length or the extraction time is increased, the amount of draft and fresh
water necessary to extract the desired amount of sugar would be decreased and it
would be possible to have less sugar loss in the wet pulp that exits the extractor.
However, the higher the tower, the more costs would be imposed on the total
operating cost of the unit. Also a shorter tower length needs higher draft which
leads to more utility costs including the steam needed in the evaporation unit.
That, again, would not favor the economics of the plant. It could be also realized
from this figure that the model developed for this system shows a great sensibility
to draft. With an increase of about 4% in the amount of water introduced to the
system, the amount of sugar losses would show a decrease of about 50%. It is
also important to mention that the Figure 6 results from the modeling only. No
economical or operational optimization has been conducted on these values.
Therefore, according to a given actual plants capacity or operating conditions, it
may be possible to put some of these points into practice and the practical aspect
needs to be verified.
Increasing the time of extraction would cause not only the entrance of more
sucrose into the raw juice but also more non sugars would diffuse through the
extraction phase leading to less purity in the final juice leaving the tower.
Variations in purity are shown in Figure 7 against the tower length. It is shown
that the purity is falling throughout the column from the top to the bottom. The
reason for such a trend is that increasing the amount of the non sugars that are
transferred from the solid flow to the juice and consequently decreasing the purity
of the final product. At L=0 i.e. top of the tower, because of the higher driving
force of the sugar mass transfer, the concentration of sugar in the juice is higher
than the non-sugars, leading to a higher purity. However, as the juice moves
toward the bottom of the tower, the amount of non sugars increases and

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 Sotudeh-Gharebagh et al.: Modeling and Optimization of the Sugar Extraction Process

consequently the purity decreases. In fact these are the modeling results which
the optimization is based upon. The longer the tower length and residence time,
the more sugar is extracted and less water is needed. However, the longer tower
length causes less purity in the final juice and more non sugars in the exit pulp.
Therefore the tower length (residence time) is one of the parameters being
considered to be optimum in the optimization process alongside the other
important parameters such as draft and amount of sugar losses. The final
optimization result compared with the actual plant data shows how these optimum
values are reached and how they affect the overall efficiency and economical
aspects of the plant.
The concentration profiles of the extracted sugar as well as the amount of
non sugars entered into the juice are plotted in Figure 8 against the effective
length of the extraction tower. This figure exhibits an ascending trend of sugar
and non sugar concentration profile as the juice moves toward the bottom of the
tower which is due to the extraction water enrichment with soluble constituents as
it passes through the tower from the top to the bottom.

0.7

0.6

0.5
Loss % kg/100 kg beet

0.4

0.3

0.2 t = 90 min
t = 100 min
t= 110 min
0.1

0
95 100 105 110 115 120
draught
Draft
Figure 6 Effect of draft and extraction time on the amount of known sugar losses in the
extraction unit

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 International Journal of Food Engineering, Vol. 5 [2009], Iss. 4, Art. 13

0.885

Purity (sugar percent/ sugar percent+ non sugar

0.88

0.875
percent)

0.87

0.865

0.86

0.855
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Tower length (m)

Figure 7 Purity profile against the tower length, L=0 is top of the tower

18
Sugar and Non sugar percent in raw juice (kg / 100

16

14

12
sugar
kg beet)

10

4
Non sugar

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20

Tower Length (m)

Figure 8 Sugar and non sugar concentration profile against the tower length

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 Sotudeh-Gharebagh et al.: Modeling and Optimization of the Sugar Extraction Process

5- Conclusion
In this work, a mathematical model was proposed in order to study the function of
the extraction tower and is being able to predict the behavior of the extraction
tower successfully. The parameters that were determined by this model with
fixed operating conditions include Brix, Purity, sugar and non-sugar content of
the effluent juice and also the amount of sugar contents of the exhausted pulp.
Among all variables in this model, mass transfer coefficients seem to have the
greatest effect on the predicted parameters. An optimization process was later
developed for the beet sugar extraction process in the steady state mode, based on
the proposed mathematical model. The optimization task on top of the model
determines the optimal values for draft, tower length and sugar loss in a way to
minimize the total cost of the extraction unit using the GA optimization
technique. The results of this study can be used as a framework to develop the
dynamic modeling and optimization of industrial extractors.

Nomenclature
A [m2 m-3] Specific surface of the beet cossettes
A [m2] Tower cross section
Bx - Total dry substance
Concentration of components (sugar, non-sugar and water) in the liquid
CL,i [kg m-3]
phase
Concentration of components (sugar, non-sugar and water) in the solid
Ci∗ [kg m-3]
phase
D - Draft
DAB [m2 s-1] Diffusion coefficient
De [m2 s-1] Effective Diffusivity
Dp [m] Cossettes diameter
F [$] Total cost of sugar extraction
k1 [s-1] Reaction rate constant
kc [m s-1] Overall mass transfer coefficient
kexternal [m s-1] Liquid phase mass transfer coefficient
kinternal [m s-1] Solid phase mass transfer coefficient
LC [m] Characteristic length of diffusion
Le [m] Effective length of tower
Lt [m] Total length of tower
NS - Non sugar components
pH - Acidity Index
Q - Juice purity
Re - Reynolds Number
S - Sugar components
Sc - Schmidt Number
Sh - Sherwood Number
T [K] Absolute temperature

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 International Journal of Food Engineering, Vol. 5 [2009], Iss. 4, Art. 13

•
V [m3/s] Flow of liquid through the tower
W - Water
X1 [$ / m] Tower cost
X2 [$ / kg] Sugar price
Steam cost
X3 [$ / kg]

Greek letters
Α Equation parameter
Β Equation parameter
Ε Liquid fraction in the tower

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