Offering a comprehensive service globally, with over 55 years of experience in the sugar sector, multidisciplinary engineering company Bosch Projects has recently developed the lamella clarifier, which uses a series of inclined plates for fast, effective particle separation and settling.

“Our research and development department, which is constantly improving efficiencies of existing equipment and developing new systems, has developed the lamella clarifier especially for the sugar industry to satisfy the demand for short retention clarification,” says Bosch Projects sugar sector director Steve Rosettenstein.

Although various lamella clarifier systems are well-established in water treatment applications, he says the technology is new in sugar processing and is especially effective for juice, syrup and refinery phosphation clarification. The Bosch Projects system is much smaller than conventional clarifiers and substantially reduces liquor retention times.

Rosettenstein adds that the design of the new settling lamella clarifier reduces the size and footprint of conventional juice clarifiers by about 30%, significantly lowering capital investment costs. Important features include short residence times, reduced sucrose degradation and improved turbidity removal. This highly efficient system, which operates with no moving parts, requires minimal maintenance.

The syrup clarifier is similar in design to the juice version, except that it operates as a flotation clarifier, as opposed to settling. The unit is particularly attractive for clients who require improved sugar quality with a lower investment cost.

Rosettenstein notes that the syrup lamella clarifier can be switched on and off as desired when syrup qualities are low and it can be easily installed inside an existing factory, owing to its relatively small size, compared with a conventional syrup clarifier. It has all the other advantages of its juice counterpart.

Bosch Projects designs and supplies a full range of sugar processing equipment, from front- end cane preparation and juice extraction, through to sugar production.

The Bosch Projects team works closely with its technology partners and various fabricators globally to ensure the manufacture of all equipment adheres to stringent international quality standards and exact design specifications. The company has an extensive network of offices in Africa, South and Central America and the UK, Rosettenstein concludes.