UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF
SCHOOL OF

TECNOLOGÍA E INDUSTRIA AZUCARERA

ISSUE:
EVAPORATION .

TEACHER:
IN
BELONGING TO :

EVAPORATORS IN THE SUGAR INDUSTRY.

 I. AIM

 Compile information about evaporators used in the sugar industry

II. THEORETICAL FUNDAMENT

II.1. EVAPORATION.
The goal of evaporation is to concentrate a solution consisting of a nonvolatile solute and
a volatile solvent. In most evaporations, the solvent is water. Evaporation is performed by
vaporizing a portion of the solvent to produce a concentrated thick liquor solution. The
residue is a liquid, the vapor is generally a single component and, even when the vapor is a
mixture, in evaporation there is no attempt to separate the vapor into fractions; its interest
lies in concentrating a solution.
In evaporation, usually the valuable product is the concentrated liquid (thick liquor) while
the vapor is condensed and discarded. However, in a specific case the opposite is likely to
occur. Mineral water is frequently evaporated in order to obtain a product free of solids for
feeding boilers, for processes with special requirements or for human consumption. This
technique is often called water distillation, but technically it is evaporation. Large-scale
evaporation processes have been developed that are used for the recovery of drinking
water from seawater. In this case, condensed water is the desired product. Only a fraction
of the total water contained in the feed is recovered, while the rest is returned to the sea.
Liquid characteristics
Some of the most important properties of evaporating liquids
 Concentration : Although the feed solution that enters an evaporator as a liquor
may be sufficiently diluted, having many of the physical properties of water, as
the concentration increases the solution takes on an increasingly more
individualistic character. Density and viscosity increase with solids content until
the solution becomes saturated or the liquor becomes too viscous for adequate
heat transfer.
The boiling temperature : can increase considerably with increasing solids content, so
the boiling temperature
 of a concentrated solution can be much greater than that of water at the same
pressure.
 Foaming: Some materials, especially organic substances, foam during
vaporization. A stable foam accompanies the vapor leaving the evaporator,
causing a strong drag.
Types of evaporators
The main types of steam-heated tubular evaporators currently used are:
1. Vertical long tube evaporators:
  Upward flow (ascending film).
 Downward flow (falling film).
 Forced circulation.
2. Stirred film evaporators.
These evaporators can operate in two ways:
1. Multiple effect evaporation: steam from one of the evaporators is introduced as
feed into the heating element of a second evaporator, and the steam from this is
sent to a condenser. A series of evaporators are used between the live steam
supply and the condenser
2. Single-effect evaporation: a single evaporator is used, the vapor from the boiling
liquid is condensed and discarded.

II.2. DEVELOPMENT OF EVAPORATORS IN THE SUGAR INDUSTRY

The requirements that evaporators must meet for the sugar industry derive from the
sugar extraction process and the complex heat distribution scheme adapted in detail to
the preliminary phases of the process and crystallization. Consequently, the evaporators
to be installed must offer large heating surfaces and good thermal transmission. In order
to respect the required sugar quality and avoid exaggerated sugar losses, short residence
times and reduced quantities of juice inside the evaporators are sought; In addition,
effective separators are required to recover the vapor droplets. These requirements of
the sugar industry led to the employment of various types of evaporators.

More than 150 years ago, with the Robert type evaporators, a technological
breakthrough was opened towards improved thermal transmission and simplified
cleaning of heat transfer surfaces. Evaporation takes place in the vertical tubular bundle
instead of the horizontal bundle. Previous developments were based on extensive
scientific studies of the basic principles of heat transition, and from 1950/51 led to the
application of continuous evaporators with significantly improved heat transfer called
fast flow evaporators.

Figure 1. Fast flow evaporator

The strategy of improving the heat transition, already at the end of the 19th century, led
to the development of downward flow evaporators which, due to problems with the
distribution of the solution, were only used for a short time. At the end of the 1960s,
with progress made in the automation of measurement and regulation technology and
improved juice distribution, the use of downflow evaporators in industry was able to
gain the necessary operational reliability. Since 1973 these downward flow evaporators
and, in 1987, completed its program with the segmented downward flow evaporator
intended especially for use in the last evaporation effects of sugar factories.

Figure1 . Downflow evaporator.

The final step in the development of evaporators involves the use of plate packs for heat
transition. Plate evaporators and plate falling film evaporators have heating surfaces
made of several embossed sheets. These are joined together in such a way that,
alternatively, chambers for the condensing vapor and chambers for the sugar solution
are formed. Although Robert type evaporators were previously very successful, this
type of device has not been produced for some time. Due to the larger heating surfaces
that can be realized, the improved heat transmission and the reduced residence times of
the juice, falling film evaporators with tube bundles have been able to prevail over
Robert type evaporators in the beet sugar industry. .

Figure 3. Downflow plate evaporator

 III. PROCESS DESCRIPTION

III.1. SUGAR PROCESS FLOW CHART

The burned and cut

cane is brought in
trucks to the plant
and is then weighed.
 Recepcion de
materia prima

Pesado y Lavado

Desfifrado The washed cane is

The shredded cane is
ground in the sugar
mill, which is made
up of 4 mills. Molienda
1st byproduct:
*bagasse.
Encalado Addition of lime
pH: 6.5 to 7.5

Calentamiento
T: 100°C.
3rd by-product: *Cachaza.
Clarificado
 Pre-evaporators:
25 °C to 30 °C.
 Evaporators: 40
to 60 °C. Evaporación

Cocimiento y
Cristalización The sugar mass is lowered
and allowed to crystallize
The sugar is washed
for 24 hours (dense and
by centrifuge.
dark mass).
Centrifugación
The honey is thrown
away and the sugar
crystals remain.
3rd byproduct: Secado y Enfriado
*Molasses.

Envasado y
Almacenado

1. Reception of Raw Material

 The burned and cut cane is transported in trucks to the plant for the sugar
production process.
2. Weighed and Washed
Then the cane that is weighed goes to the washing process through a
series of old machines that stop on the conveyor belts.
3. Preparation machines
They are shredding machines and/or choppers responsible for breaking
the stems to prepare the cane before the grinding process. The choppers
are shafts placed on conductors driven by turbines, equipped with
rotating blades that cut the stems and turn them into chips.
4. Grinding
The cane prepared by the grinders reaches the mill, which is made up of
four mills, and through pressure it extracts the juice from the cane.
As the cane travels through the mill, water is added, generally hot, to
extract as much as possible of the sucrose contained in the fibrous
material. The bagasse that comes out of the last grinding unit is taken to a
bagasse to dry and then goes to the boilers as fuel, producing the high-
pressure steam that is used in the mills' turbines.
The diluted juice from grinding is weighed on scales with load cells to
know the amount of sucrose juice that enters the factory.

5. Whitewash
Equipment in which a lime solution is added to the juice to reduce the
acidity and prevent the inversion of sucrose, an effect that helps
precipitate most of the impurities contained in the juice.
6. Heating
Equipment where the temperature of the juice is raised to a level close to
105ºC. By using vegetable steam.
7. Clarified
Process in which insoluble solids are separated from diluted juice. The
sludge (solid) is evacuated from the bottom of the clarifier, while the
clarified juice or clear juice is extracted from the top.
The clarification temperature is 100 °C. It is considered a critical point.
8. Evaporation
Here the water from the juice begins to evaporate. The clear juice, which
has almost half the composition of the extracted raw juice (with the
 exception of the impurities eliminated in the cachaça), is received in the
evaporators with a percentage of soluble solids between 10 and 12%.
In the evaporation process, syrup or syrup is obtained. The syrup is
purified in a clarifier. The operation is similar to the previous one to
clarify the filtered juice.
 Pre-evaporators: 25°C to 30°C.
 Evaporators: 40 to 60 °C.

9. Cooking and crystallization

Crystallization is carried out in pots, which are single-effect vacuum
containers. The resulting material containing liquid (honey) and crystals
(sugar) is called massecuite. The crystallization work is carried out using
the three-cooking system to achieve the highest concentration of sucrose.

10. Centrifugation
The mass passes through centrifuges, agricultural machines in which the
crystals are separated from the mother liquor by means of a centrifugal
mass. The honey that comes out of the centrifuges is pumped into storage
tanks and then subjected to greater evaporation and crystallization in the
bins. After three successive crystallizations, final honey is obtained,
which is removed from the process and marketed as raw material for the
production of alcohols at a concentration of 96.5%.

Centrifugation consists of 3 bins: Sugar is extracted in the first and

second bins. As for the third container, the final honey is found and is
used for the production of alcohol and/or livestock feed.

11. Dried and cooled

Process carried out with hot air to remove as much moisture as possible
from the sugar.
The sugar is dried at a temperature close to 60ºC, it is passed through
inclined rotary coolers that carry cold air in countercurrent, where its
temperature is lowered to approximately 40-45ºC to lead to the container.
12. Packaged and stored
Dry and cold sugar is packed in paper bags in weights of 50 kg and in
bags of 5 to 10 kg. The finished product is sent to the warehouse for
subsequent sale and trade.

III.2. EVAPORATION OPERATION

 The evaporation operation within a sugar mill is carried out between the clarification
and crystallization stages. Particularly, a Roberts-type evaporator with long vertical
tubes is used, which is made up of a section of tubes and a calender, which has a tube
with lateral detachment to evacuate the concentrated juice. The feed cane juice which
has an initial concentration of sucrose is pumped through the bottom of the
evaporator towards the side of the tubes at a mass flow rate and in bubble point
condition.
Additionally, boiler steam is fed to the side of the evaporator calender at a mass flow
rate, said boiler steam delivers all its latent heat of condensation to the wall of the
tubes, where the clear juice begins its boiling process and the condensates Boiler
steam is evacuated through the top of the evaporator.
For its part, in the evaporator tubes, as the water vapor bubbles rise, their diameter
increases until it covers the entire cross section of the tube. These bubbles carry a
certain amount of juice, which is trapped by a deflector. In this section of the
equipment, the physical separation of the concentrated juice and the vapor occurs.
Finally, the concentrated juice is evacuated through a tube with lateral detachment.

Figure 4. Flow chart for sugarcane juice evaporation process

III.3. EQUIPMENT DESCRIPTION

III.3.1. CHARACTERISTICS

 They can be upward flow (rising film), downward flow (falling film) and
forced circulation.
 Single pass or with recirculation.
  It consists of a vertical chamber provided with vertically tubular heat
exchangers.
 Steam that condenses inside the chamber is usually used as a heating
medium.
 The liquid is inside the tubes.
 The tubes are primarily 1 to 2 inches in diameter and 12 to 32 feet in
length, which helps obtain very high liquid velocities.
 Typically, the liquid passes through the tubes only once and is not
recirculated. Contact times are usually quite short in this model
 In some cases, natural recirculation of the product through the evaporator
can be used.

III.3.2. OPERATING CONDITIONS

It must be taken into account that long tube vertical evaporators must always operate at
partial vacuum, as this measure reduces the boiling temperature in the evaporation
chamber. Recirculation of part of the product to the evaporator is recommended when
the ratio of feed to evaporation or feed to heating surface is low.

III.3.3. COMPONENTS

The components that basically make up the long-tube vertical evaporator are a steam-
heated shell-and-tube exchanger; It has the shape of a vertical cylinder in which is
located:
 TUBULAR HEATING: it is formed by bundles of tubes within which the liquid
circulates, these tubes are heated by heating steam that enters through a belt. The
diameters of these tubes are 3 to 6 cm, and their length is 3 to 6 m.
 DEFLECTOR: It is located at the top, and is responsible for separating most of
the liquid particles from the vapor.
 SEPARATOR: is responsible for separating the vapor from the concentrated
liquid phase, which is retained and returns to the concentrate outlet tube.
 Figure 5. Vertical long tube evaporator

IV. TRIPLE EFFECT FALLING FILM EVAPORATOR

Evaporation is a thermal separation technology used for the concentration or separation
of liquid solutions, suspensions and emulsions, where the desired end product is
generally a concentrated, still pumpable liquid.
Evaporation is a process governed by liquid-vapor equilibrium that allows the
concentration of a solution composed of a non-volatile solute and a volatile solvent,
which in most cases is water. They are used with materials with high heat sensitivity
and viscosity consistency materials, or caustic materials, and can also be used for the
condensation of corn-based liquor and maltose juices in the starch, fruit juice and
glutamate liquid industries. monosodium in the food industry, milk in the dairy industry,
syrups in the sugar industry , liquor filtration in the wine industry, etc.
Falling film evaporators can be operated with very low temperature differentials
between the heating medium and the liquid to be evaporated and also have very short
contact times with the product, just a few seconds per step. These features make the
falling film evaporator especially suitable for heat-sensitive products.
Therefore, it preserves the organoleptic properties of the original product in the
processed product. With a multiple effect design, allowing greater energy savings and
reducing operating costs
How do they work:
  The liquid to be concentrated is introduced through the upper part of the heating
tubes and is distributed uniformly inside as a thin film that descends along the
walls of the tubes.
 The liquid film begins to boil due to external heating, producing partial
evaporation.
 The product descends inside the tubes induced by its own gravity and by the
descent of the vapors sucked in by the vacuum system.
 The vapors are definitively separated from the concentrated fluid, first in the
lower part of the casing and then in the centrifugal separator.
 For the optimal functioning of the falling film evaporator, it is essential that the
entire heating surface, that is, the interior walls of the tubes, is completely
covered by a uniform film of liquid. That is why an adequate distribution system
in the evaporator header is essential.

This point is of utmost importance, since insufficient wettability of the tubes leads to
possible places where the process does not develop correctly, which leads to:
 low evaporation yields
 premature fouling of tubes
 eventually to their clogging.

 Partial evaporation occurs inside the tubes and the product that is being
concentrated remains in intimate contact with the vapor due to the negative
pressure that is generated.

Falling Film Evaporator Features:

 It has adjustable and controllable direct contact heat treatment units.
 It has the shortest possible residence time, thanks to the presence of a thin film
along the length of the tube.
 Liquid distribution systems are specially designed to ensure proper tube
coverage.
 The vapor flow is parallel to that of the liquid and the vapor entrainment
improves heat transfer. A cyclone separator is adopted, where the vapor and the
remaining liquid are separated.
 Efficient separator design.
 Multiple effect distribution helps improve steam efficiency.
Parts of falling film triple effect evaporator:

Particular characterisitics:
 Better product quality: thanks to less aggressive evaporation, normally carried
out under vacuum and with extremely short residence times in the evaporator.

 High energy efficiency: thanks to multiple effects or heating using a

mechanical vapor recompressor or a thermocompressor and with very small
temperature differences between the vapor side and the product side.

 Simple process control and automation: thanks to the very low flow rate of
product circulating through the falling film evaporators, they can react and
adjust quickly to variations in energy supply, vacuum characteristics, feed rates,
concentrations, etc. This is essential to obtain a uniform final concentrate.

 Flexible operation: quick start-up and easy switching from operation mode to
cleaning mode; possible variation of the feed product.

V. CATALOG OF TRIPLE EFFECT EVAPORATORS AVAILABLE ON

THE MARKET
 Falling film evaporator/triple effect falling film vacuum
evaporator/vacuum falling film evaporator

USD 10,000.00
Available at:
https://spanish.alibaba.com/product-detail/falli
ng-film-evaporator-triple-effect-falling-film-
vacuum-evaporator-vacuum-falling-film-
evaporator-008618221812723-
60823373483.html?spm
=a2700.8699010.normalList.65.28ce11581SdXw
6
  Economical effective triple effect vacuum evaporator

USD 1,000.00 - USD 200,000.00

Available at: https://meckey.en.china.cn/

 Triple effect drop evaporator

Available at: http://es.triowin.com

Bibliography:
 Galván-Ángeles, E., Díaz-Ovalle, C., Ramos, E. & Herrera, F. (2012). Interface
for the design of multiple-effect falling particle evaporators for the food
industry. In: XXXIII National Meeting and II International Congress of the
AMIDIQ, San José del Cabo, BCS, Mexico, 1094-1099.

 Díaz-Ovalle, CO, Ramos-Ojeda, E., Alvarado-Montoya, FJ & Rivera-

Hernández, J. R. (2011). Interface for the calculation of multiple-effect
evaporators, SiNIQTA, Aguascalientes, 111.

 Barbosa-Cánovas, G. & Vega-Mercado, H. (2000). Food dehydration. Acribia

SA, Zaragoza, Spain.

 BMA, Evaporators, BMA continues to keep up with the times [online].

Braunschweig. Available at:
https://www.bma-worldwide.com/fileadmin/Templates/BMA/PDF/news/bma_in
formation_2009/spanish/es_verdampfung.pdf.
 Cenidet, Fault Tolerant Control in Heat Transfer Equipment. [online].
Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. November 2007. Available at:
http://www.cenidet.edu.mx/subaca/web-elec/tesis_mc/204MC_megs.pdf.
 Edelflex, GEA PHE Systems, Evaporation Technology [online].
Sarstedt.Germany. Available at:
http://www.gea-phe.com/fileadmin/user_upload/documents/brochures/GEA_PH
E_Evaporation_en.pdf.
 Santiago López, Phenomenologically based semi-physical model of a Roberts
type sugar cane juice evaporator. [online]. National University of Colombia,
Medellín Campus. Reception: 2013 - 02 - 11 | Acceptance: 2013 - 02 – 23.
Available at:
http://revistas.ustatunja.edu.co/index.php/ingeniomagno/article/view/748/665.
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ml

 William & Obidio. Computational simulation of the entry of sugarcane juice

into a Roberts evaporator. Science and Technology . [online]. Received: 05-22-
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http://revistas.unitru.edu.pe/index.php/PGM/article/view/137/121.

 Jiménez, Marjorie; Rivera Lissette & Rodas, Fátima. Project to create a sugar
producing company based on beets and stevia. Litoral Polytechnic Higher
School. Guayaquil, Ecuador.