K-Patents SeedMaster 2 - Manual (Page 5)

1 INTRODUCTION 5
5
1 INTRODUCTION
Sugar manufacturing dates back more than one and a half century. World sugar production in year 2000
reached 150 million tons, which probably represents the largest amount of a product produced in crystalline
form.
Due to the long history of sugar manufacturing the sugar industry is regarded as a mature one, where no
exciting new developments can be expected. It has long traditions based on the work of skilled people, who
acquired their skill in controlling the various parts of the technology often during their lifetime. However, times
are changing. The fierce competition in the industry and in the market forces even industries with long
traditions to make effective use of the advanced methods of production in order to survive.
It became evident that besides better machinery and equipment in the technology, the use of new types of
equipment and know-how is a must for the plants if they wish to be competitive.
Some of the new equipment comes in the form of
• new instruments and
• computer-based automatic control systems,
never heard of before, but there are substantial changes in the required know-how, too. In addition to the
usual chemical- and mechanical-engineering background experience in instrumentation, automatic process
control and in the use of computers and informatics became vital. Conclusion: there are substantial changes
even in a “mature” industry.
Crystallization is a very important step in sugar manufacturing. Final product quality and cost of production
depend very much on its execution. For quite a long time its control was the sole responsibility of the
“artisan” pan-man, but these times are over now. Instruments to provide some objective information on the
process appeared in the plants around the middle of the 20
th century. They were intended to provide
information on syrup concentration (correlated to supersaturation) and on massecuite density or consistency
(correlated to crystal content). None of the instruments in use today are able to serve well both of these basic
needs.
Some of the common instruments are based on the change of an electrical parameter of the massecuite
(conductivity or / and capacitance). Due to their less than satisfactory operation, the frequency of the
electrical signal used kept increasing. The first conductivity probes used signals of only a few kHz frequency.
The RF (Radio Frequency) probes use signals in the 100 MHz range, while the fairly new microwave probes
use even much higher signal frequency. It is interesting to note that the well proven method to measure liquid
concentration, that is the use of refractometers dates back well over a century, and makes use of even
higher frequency, that is the frequency of light. The modern process refractometer which is available since
the 1980-s became the most accurate and reliable workhorse in this field.
Realising the potential and importance of the modern process refractometer, original research and
development was started by PROFICON Ltd., Hungary in the second half of the 1990-s to develop new
instruments providing reliable information on the most important parameter of crystallization: supersaturation,
combined with automatic seeding. The first result of this effort was the SeedMaster optional software,
which is available with the PR-01-S type K-PATENTS process refractometers. In a new development, the
SeedMaster 2 Crystallization Transmitter And Automatic Seeding Device offers more and advanced
features. Both devices are unique, represent a completely new class of instruments and are based on
several decades of experience in carrying out mill-wide automatic control projects in several countries of the
world.
IMPORTANT NOTICE:
Realizing that SeedMaster 2 is a device not comparable to any of the common ones used in crystallization,
this manual probably discusses in more detail some special issues related to the subject, than usual. While
doing so the main effort was directed to increase the realization of the importance of supersaturation in
crystallization control, a long neglected field because of the lack of a reliable instrument capable to provide
on-line data on it. Recommendations on some issues, for example: method of seeding, the value of
supersaturation during a crystallization process are really only recommendations, and though they certainly
are in line with the latest results of research in this field, it is up to the end user how she / he wants to use the
instrument.
The manufacturer of SeedMaster 2 can not be made responsible for any type of damage that might be
caused by its use.