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Refinery Processes

MSM Sugar Refining Process

The Magic Of Refinery

The major stages of refining operations are described below.  Please refer also to the attached flowchart.

1. Raw Sugar Delivery
Raw sugar delivered by ocean vessels is transferred to lighters and brought to MSM jetty.  A crane and excavator equipped with grab buckets are used to unload raw sugar from the lighters onto belt conveyors.  The conveyors transport the sugar to a weigher for weighing before unloading the sugar in the warehouse for storage.

Unloading Of Raw Sugar From Vessel
Lighter Operation From Raw Sugar Vessel To MSM Jetty
Raw Sugar Unloading at MSM Jetty

Raw Sugar Storage
Two Raw Sugar Warehouses with Total Capacity of 90,000 metric ton

• No 2 Raw Sugar Warehouse Capacity : 25,000 metric ton
• No 3 Raw Sugar Warehouse Capacity : 65,000 metric ton

Raw Sugar Warehouse

2. Affination
In the first step of refining operation, raw sugar crystals are mixed with raw syrup to soften and remove the crystal outer coatings of impurities.  The crystals are then separated from the syrup and hosed with hot water in a centrifuge.  This process is called “affination”.

Automated process control	Affination

3. Carbonation
The washed sugar discharged from the centrifuge is dissolved in a premelter to form melted liquor.  The melted liquor is pumped to the carbonator where lime and carbon dioxide are added to form a precipitate of calcium carbonate which traps most of the impurities.

Carbonation

4. Filtration
The carbonated precipitate together with the impurities are removed by pressure filtering through the first and second side filters leaving behind “clear liquor”.

Filtration station consists of the followings:
a. First stage filtration : Rotary drum filters
b. Second stage filtration : Sweetland filters
c. Polishing filtration : Sweetland filters

Filters

5. Ion Exchange Resin
Further colour removal is achieved by pumping the clear liquor through towers containing ion exchange resins (IER).  The colour-causing components in the liquor are adsorbed onto the resin surfaces and left-behind.

Ion Exchange Resin Towers

6. Polishing Filtration
To ensure that no solid impurities get carried forward in the process, the “decoloured liquor” undergoes a final filtration stage in the polishing filters.

7. Evaporation
The treated liquor, now called “fine liquor” is ready for crystallisation.  However, it must first be concentrated by having its excess water content removed. 

Two different sets of equipment are available for this purpose:
a. A falling film evaporator using as its heat source vapour supplied by a mechanical vapour re-compressor (MVR)
b. A double effect plate evaporator (DEPE).

Falling Film Evaporator	Double Effect Evaporator

8. Crystallisation
The concentrated fine liquor leaving the evaporators is subsequently boiled in a vessel known as a vacuum pan.  Fine sugar crystals are used as “seed”. The crystals are grown to the required size by adding more liquor. When they are large enough, the mixture of crystal and syrup, called “massecuite”, is discharged from the pan.

Vacuum Pan
1. Refined Pans (white sugar): Batch Pan, Vertical  Crystallisation Tower (VKT)
2. Recovery Pans (brown sugar): Batch Pan and Vertical Crystallizer

Automated Batch Vacuum Pan	Vertical Continuous Crystalliser	Process control of VKT at computer

9. Curing
The massecuite undergoes separation into its component crystal and syrup constituents in a centrifuge machine.  In the machine the crystals are hosed with hot water to enhance the separation effect.

Batch Centrifugals

10. Screening
The refined sugar crystals are then dried, cooled, sieved and stored in storage bins.

Dryer	Cooled	Sieved

11. Packing & Delivery
From the storage bins, the sugar is transported by conveyor belts to the packaging area and packed into various grades or transferred into the silo for sugar delivery by bulk containers.

Refined Sugar Product