Hokkaido Sugar Co., Ltd.

Shigeki Hashimoto

Shigeyoshi Narita

Shinichi Meguro

Kazuo Kawamura

Shinsaku Imafuku

Beet juice is purified, then concentrated and treated in several steps for boiling and centrifugal separation to effect recovery of sucrose therefrom. The molasses remaining after the separation of sucrose from massecuite is treated with .alpha.-galactosidase to effect hydrolysis of raffinose present in the molasses. The resultant raffinose hydrolyzate is introduced into a calcium saccharate-forming step, wherein quicklime is continuously added to the hydrolyzate to form saccharate within the hydrolyzate. From the calcium saccharate-forming step, nearly the same volume of the saccharate-containing solution as that of the raffinose hydrolyzate fed therein is forwarded to a filtering and washing step. The resultant saccharate cake is sent back to the step for purification. From said calcium saccharate-forming step, the same saccharate-containing solution is also withdrawn in a volume of from three to ten times that of said raffinose hydrolyzate fed therein, is cooled and thereafter returned to the calcium saccharate-forming step. The saccharate-containing solution is circulated several times through this step so that discharge of waste molasses is eliminated and the sucrose contained in the beet juice is efficiently recovered substantially in its entire amount.

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Tokyo, Japan

Shigeki Hashimoto