Technologies and Innovations adopted / to be adopted in sugar firms. Essay

Technologies and Innovations adopted / to be adopted in sugar firms
Sugar firms of Mauritius have all relatively kept pace with technological innovations. In the 2015-16 investment programme of Alteo, the Group intends to further consolidate the mill tandem and install a massecuite re-heater for the backend of the factory. The group is also considering the replacement of the rotary vacuum filter with a vacuum belt filter so as to minimise sucrose losses, and this would simultaneously eliminate the use of fine bagasse which could in turn be used for the green energy production (Alteo, 2014).
Terra Milling Ltd of Terra Group, which has been BRC Global Standards certified since 2007, applies the HACCP Codex Alimentarius methodology throughout its sugar manufacturing processes. It is also equipped with an in-house fully equipped laboratory to ensure that its sugars are produced to the highest standard of food-safety. Terra is also conscious of the energy challenges facing Mauritius and in that respect, the project 'Sugarcane Trash to Energy' was submitted for consideration to the Mauritius Council (MRC) under the Collaborative Research and Innovation Grant Scheme (CRIGS) was approved during the year 2014. Experiments conducted on the combustion of cane trash in our boilers gave encouraging results and Terragen will, under the CRIGS, invest in the appropriate resources to implement this project. Furthermore, Terragen is also engaged in a project with Albioma and another local IPP for the setting up of a Carbon Burn Out (CBO) plant which will engage itself in the conversion of coal fly ash into cement additive by exhausting residual carbon content to levels satisfactory to cement manufacturers. A new company named Thermal Valorisation Co. Ltd, in which Terragen holds a 35% stake, has been incorporated for that purpose but is not yet operational.
In 2014, Omnicane Milling Operations Limited launched the "Near Infrared Cane Testing system  the Jeffco Infracana II". The Jeffco Infracana II Cane Analyser can be operated by a single person and performs an analysis of a cane sample within four minutes. It has the advantages such as automation, more demonstrative analysis, speediness of analysis, user friendliness and transparent as it is an open design. The system is also environment-friendly as no chemicals and reagents are necessary.
Amidst their difficult times when Medine Group encountered a damage in their 50-ton John Thompson (JTA) boiler and as s a result, the mill's crushing rate was reduced from 170 tonnes of cane per hectare (TCH) to 140 TCH, implying urgent upgrading the mill's machinery, and a silver lining appeared in September 2014 in the form of a Power Purchase Agreement signed between Medine Sugar Milling and the Central Electricity Board for the supply, by the group's new turbines, of some 12 MW of electricity per year to the national grid. The entirety of this energy will be produced from bagasse, rendering it 100% green. This project will require an investment of Rs 330 million to allow us to preserve employment and maintain their operations for a better future.