Sugar cane juice sweetener is unrefined, non-centrifugal, whole cane sugar prepared without the use of any chemical or synthetic additives. Traditionally, cane stalks are squeezed for their juice, then the juice is evaporated using open furnace and bagasse as heat source. This processing method entails high energy loss, high level of drudgery, contamination and emission of high level of green gas into the atmosphere. To enhance the production efficiency and product quality, a simple and efficient charcoal powered evaporator was designed, constructed and evaluated. The evaluation was conducted using two varieties of sugar cane (“Farin rake” Green and “Koma” Purple) and three levels of sugarcane juice quantity. These were laid in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) and data collected were analyzed using Statistical Analysis System (SAS). Performance parameters considered were thermal efficiency, specific fuel consumption, insoluble solids, total soluble solids and colour. The results obtained revealed that the mean thermal efficiency for “Farin rake” (Green) variety 18.8% was significantly different from the mean of 17.2% for “Koma” (Purple) variety. The specific fuel consumption of 1.93 obtained when “Farin rake” (Green) variety used was significantly higher than 1.69 obtained when “Koma” (Purple) was used. However, the insoluble solids and the total soluble solids values obtained for both varieties were not statistically different at 5% probability level. In conclusion, the varietal difference in sugar cane and quantity of juice processed per batch have significant difference on thermal efficiency, specific fuel consumption. And sugar juice sweetener obtained from developed evaporator are lighter in colour when compared with the colour obtained for the locally processed sweetener.
Key words: Development, Brown sugar, Mazarkwaila, evaporator, evaluation
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