How to achieve a high sugar crystal quality of the massecuite? Welcome everybody to today's webinar! Now I'm giving up to our today's presenter Hans Cramer, who is joining today from America. The stage is yours! Thank you very much, Hendrik! My name is Hans Cramer. I've been in BMA around 11 years now. Don't... And before, when I started in BMA, I was in the engineering department. And afterwards I moved to sales, where I'm now the sales manager for the Latin American region and Florida. So, we're gonna talk today, I'm going to share now my screen. And our topic for today is the BMA process for the seed massecuite production in what we call "the pan seeding system" or what we call in Spanish, the "El Tachito". So for crystallisation, it is desirable to produce crystals with a uniform size and appearance, with a low variation coefficient or CV, and without agglomerations in the end after drying. So in order to, first of all, facilitate the centrifugation and washing in the centrifugal station to enable the drying without losses, that means to reduce the dust in the drying system, and to reduce the wash water application and energy consumption, and to optimize the crystallisation time. And last but not least, to facilitate the storage and the packaging. So in the current situation, where we, especially in the cane industry, the seed massecuite is produced only by evaporation and in the separate batch pan. That means that they use one batch pan for seed massecuite by evaporation, and the rest of the batch pans are the ones that are taking care of the crystallisation. That means what we had investigated was there is a lot of local supersaturation peaks, means the formation of the dreaded fine crystals. So due to this, the current situation that was also before in the big industry in the refinery, and we in BMA without the ideal crystallisation process, and we have to look, first of all, it would not have to look by first formation of fine crystals, and with a high variation coefficient. These are what the ideal process should not look like. What it should look like is actually to, first of all, reduce the formation of fine crystals to have a very low variation coefficient, and to let a natural growth of the existing crystals, So we in BMA first in the beet industry, we came out with a solution to separate the seeding from the pan boiling process in a system that is exclusively designed for crystal growth in a well-controlled crystallisation process. By cooling, we have a controlled supersaturation right after seeding. And in the end, the results are that we have a more uniform and controlled crystal growth. So, how do we do that? As a process description, we can see here in this graph, in the y-axis, we have the temperature and the crystal content. And the x-axis, we have the time. So in this graph, we have crystallisation without evaporation. What we do is we start after letting the massecuite inside boil to get to a boiling point, and we let it cool. We start cooling until we get to the point of the seeding point. This is where we add the slurry around 60℃. And after that, we let the massecuite even lower up to 30℃. And by doing that, the crystal content inside grows exponentially. So by the end, we have a temperature around 30℃, and a crystal content of around 20% just with this cooling process. And as you can see, the temperature of the cooling water is almost around the same or in parallel to the temperature of the massecuite. Both of them are always running in parallel. So, how do we... how does it look like really in a process in our equipment? Which is called the Tachito. The functional principle is... This is itself the Tachito for the cooling crystalliser. Inside, what we do is, like I told you, first, we need to evaporate a little bit until the boiling point of the massecuite. And so, we first fill it up, then we start with the evaporation, using the same cooling, using the same coils. And then afterwards, we start cooling down. And to the point of seeding, we add the slurry. And we start with the mixing since the beginning. And this is what it looks like until it gets to the ideal temperature of 30°C. Let's keep in mind, this is a batch process that it goes around 5 to 6 hours per batch. And afterwards, we go to the process integration. And this is the part where we had to think, okay, are we going to integrate the cooling crystalliser to a normal system, crystallisation system. So here we have the cooling crystalliser after a batch of seed. What it does is we transport it to a receiver or a male exciter, where it keeps turning with an agitator so that it doesn't start also to crystallize. So it keeps moving in the receiver and the receiver, then, it pumps the seed massecuite to the vacuum pans. And it works also as a type of ring, pipeline, in which it comes back to the receiver. So, again, after the cooling crystalliser done with the batch, it goes into a receiver. And then, it pumps to a vacuum pan or vacuum pans, depending on your system. And on the other side, you can see the accessories that we have for the cooling crystalliser first. It's the slurry that comes from a slurry mill. We have the heat exchanger, which is a cooling and heat exchanger. We have also fresh water, steam, vapour and thick juice. These are all the elements for the process integration. After that, we have another example of a process integration into crystallisation using vacuum pans, the continuous vacuum pans, in which, like I told you, this is the 1st step, the 1st seed massecuite production, which the slurry which comes around 10 microns, it goes into the cooling crystalliser. And then in the end, we have around 100 to 140 microns. So this is the 1st step. Afterwards, it goes to the 2nd step, which is in the batch pan, that is used always in the continuous process, where it can grow the seed that is coming from 100-140 microns to around 400-500 microns. And then afterwards in the VKT, our solution for continuous vacuum pan. We can have a crystal product of around 700 microns, depending on the solution or the crystal size that the customer has. So, the idea behind the cooling crystalliser is that you can choose what type of crystal size, and the content you would like in the end. Think about this as your pre order of what you want afterwards in the end. So, with the cooling crystalliser as a system in your factory, you will get... This will be your first phrase before you go into your last phrase of crystallisation. For this, we have a design of the cooling crystalliser, depending we have a wide range of different sizes. It usually is depending on the volume and the cooling surface, but normally, especially in the cane industry, we have this type of cooling crystalliser, the 6.8 is one of the most used, let's say, depending on the size of the factory. And, in the inside or how it looks like is we BMA have an individual process that we designed and tailor-made to the customer needs. So the sizes depend mostly on the production of the crystals and sugar in the factory. And inside, the seeding crystal is very simple. It's a tank with a motor inside. And outside, we have an inlet of cold water steam. We have the cooling coils inside. We have the agitator which, in this case, is part of the most important part of the cooling crystalliser. We have the thick juice entry and the discharge. It is used for crystallisation of refined sugar, raw sugar and white sugar. And it is standard in the refinery and in the beet industry. And we just started to do this as a product in cane industry. The reason is most of the sugar in the beet and in the refineries are sugar that is supposed to be or there is for direct consumption. Most of the times in the cane industry before, it was only thought of as raw sugar, which was going to be used afterwards in the refinery or for afterwards in local consumption. So it was not taken into consideration a lot, let's put it this way, the crystal size, the crystal content, the way it looks. So before in the cane industry, this was not used. And now in the new age that we have in the cane industry, where we have a lot of types of crystal size and the color and the quality. And then this product is used mainly and will be used more and more, until we have a standard like in the refinery and the beet industry. So in the process integration, in the cane industry, the current process is the "double magma" scheme where we have the slurry coming from the C-massecuite. The sugar of the C is basically the seed of the B-massecuite. And the sugar of B is the seed for A. And then the syrup for A goes into B, the syrup of B goes into C and so on. So the idea, the first time we use the cooling crystalliser, the Tachito, was with our factory in Honduras called Santa Matilde. And the idea first was we wanted to talk about VKT or continuous vacuum pan. We had a visit from them to Germany to visit some sugar factories. And all of the sugar factories in the beet industry, especially in Germany, have the cooling crystallizer. Every time we made a visit with them, they always asked us what's this process? What is this equipment? So we told them it's the seeding system and we try to explain, and we get to the point where Santa Matilde was so interested in this, that we had to, let's say, recover this product, as this product was, as I told you, a standard of the beet industry and the refinery industry. But it was never been used before in the cane industry. So what we did with them was a total different process integration, as the double magma scheme that usually the cane industry is the standard. So, this was the example that we used in the beginning. But the seed was going to be separate with the Tachito. And it was going to give seed for the A to the refinery. And then when it was afterwards, the process was like this. So the seed was going to A, and then the syrup was going to the B-massecuite, and then B the same going to the C magma. And the only difference was the sugar of the C was going to be the seed of B, but the sugar of B was dissolved and used also in the A-massecuite, instead of being the seed. So this was the only difference. And the results which were going to show you afterwards was really impressive. We can do the conclusion that especially in the cane industry, this is going to be... this can be a really incredible product, so to speak. So, in Santa Matilde, this is where they had a massive production of 150t/h. The 1st seed production of this cooling crystalliser was1.6t/h. And the volume, as I told you before, 6.8 cubic meters. And cooling surface of 27 meter^2. And with the agitator of 18kW The auxiliary equipment of the feed solution tank and the slurry milll. Now below the cooling crystalliser, is the malaxator, which, like I told you, is a tank, which has inside an agitator. And the auxiliary equipment is the seed massecuite pump. And of course the slurry mill, which is only a 10l volume with a little agitator of 0.55kW and the auxiliary equipment of the roller blocks. So this was all the equipment that we used for the Tachito, for the cooling crystalliser in Santa Matilde. And now for the crystallisation results that we had, especially in the refinery, this was first the slurry coming from the slurry mill. Then this was seen at the end of the cooling crystallisation. And then this is the refined end product with cooling crystalliser and pan automation. One of the key issues here is of course the automation of the batch pans, as the cooling crystalliser works as a clockwork. With the automation of the batch pans, in the refinery. So the crystallisation results. They had a crystal growth from 10 microns to 100 microns in the cooling crystalliser, with the crystal content of 20%. They improved the sugar quality, the particle size, from a coefficient variation of 44% to 28%. And this is very incredible to see. You had an increase of the capacity of the refinery by approximately 50%. So they used to do 7,000 bags per day previously, and after the... the use of the cooling crystalliser and the automation of the batch pans, they had a capacity of 11,500 bags a day, keeping in mind that this was a 50kg per bag. And last but not least, it was the increase sugar yield of around 2-4% more. So the benefits of having a cooling crystalliser in a factory, especially in the sugar cane factory now, is we have reduced wash water quantity in the centrifugals, and improved sugar color, improved sugar syrup separation in the centrifugals reduced the formation of fine crystals, fewer losses in the dryer, that means there's not going to be too much dust. We have a reduced consumption of water and energy, and optimized crystallisation time. This is also done by the automation of the batch pans. We have improved process control, thanks to the automation of the system and the vacuum pans, improved storage and packaging. We have also a uniform product size and appearance, and a low investment cost in relation to the benefits. This is one of the key parts of the cooling crystalliser. And in the end, I think everyone in the sugar industry, you may be a beet refinery or cane, what do you want in the end is this. This is the money maker. This is what you want. So after, as I told you before, we had the standard in the refinery, in the beet industry. And one of the last cooling crystalliser we did was in Chile, where they have a beet industry. They don't have cane. It was in 2000. The first cooling crystalliser in the cane industry was in Honduras, in Santa Matilde. After that, we were in India, in India Cane Power. Then with the friends from El Salvador in Ingenio Izalco. Now we have in a new refinery, a mini refinery in Hamilton, Canada. We also have now in 2019 a new refinery in the US, the California Sugar Refinery. And last year, we saw the last one in the project for the US, where we cannot still speak about it. But what we want is to know, where our new in 2021 cooling crystalliser will be? We have more than 50 Tachitos around the globe. As you can see, we have around 40 in Europe, in the beet industry. We have 5 in Asia, 5 in Africa, and we have now 6 in the Americas. So we hope that with this presentation, we can have more of the Tachitos worldwide. So, thank you very much for your attention! And Hendrik, you have now the stage. Great, Hans! Thank you so much for the presentation! It's really insightful. And as we see already, we have many questions. I would like to jump directly into the first question. So the question is, is it also possible to use it in B and C massecuites, I guess? Yes, in a way. We did some tests in Santa Matilde, in Honduras, using it in the B and C, the only issue is that the crystal is very very beautiful. And once you put it in the continuous machines, continuous centrifugals, as you know, the process is the sugar goes to hit a wall, and most of the crystals then... If you have these crystals with this beautiful size, and so the form and the quality is very nice. And once you have that and you hit to a wall, it kinds of ended up destroying a lot of the crystals. And so it can be used of course the B or C, but it is recommended only for the A-massecuite or the refinery. Okay. So the next one is really sales related. What is the typical return of investment for such a Tachito? The return of investment can be around 1 year, but it depends mainly also on the automation of the actual batch pans in the factory. So depending on that, you can get a return of investment faster. If you don't have automation of the batch pans, then it gets a little bit trickier, because we have to combine both. Okay. The next question is, does the cooling crystalliser use any type of brix or density measurement? And if so, what type of brand? So the brand is usually depending on the customer. Yes, we use a brix measurement in the cooling crystalliser. And we usually have our own brand, but if the customer wants another type of brand, we use that also, but it must be in parallel or with the same usage as what the ones we use, for example. The next question is, do you still use a sugar grader after implementing such system? So I guess they are speaking about after the dryer. Again, can you please... This sugar grader will not be required afterwards? So I guess in terms of the nice crystal distribution, is it still necessary to have a sugar grader after the drying pan or not? Well, we still recommended. But if you have that quality of sugar afterwards, it's still good to use it. It's not that no one's going to use it afterwards. Yeah. I guess so. Okay. Nobert Iteca is asking, is the cooling crystalliser an exclusive product of BMA? Yes. We have the cooling crystalliser, and I don't know if anyone else has it. I have not heard of it. And we may be the only ones who do it. I don't know. So i don't really know. But up until now, at least in the Americas, there is no one that has done this before. Yeah. At least what you just presented is basically showing everything what BMA is doing exclusively. So how long is BMA using this process? Ah, you got me there. What I think it's around... We started using it around the 80s or 70s here. And after that, it became like a snowball effect in the beet industry and in the refineries. And after that, we kind of stopped in the 2000. And we started again, basically in 2015 with Santa Matilde. Yeah. So another actually was sending a lot of questions, but I would like to focus on this one. They see problems with the incorporation of syrup in the cooling crystalliser. Without doubt, good agitation helps. But what is your view of using isopropanol versus PEG and slurry to improve good distribution of seed across the batch in cooling crystallisation? I think this is more in the slurry mill, where we use isopropanol , but, I mean, we use it in our slurry mill, but I have not heard of using it in the cooling crystalliser. Okay, the next one. Is cooling crystalliser limited to 100-140 μm or can it be grown bigger? If not in the cooling crystalliser, can it be done afterwards in the receiving tank? 100-140 μm is a range that we see a possible of the growth of the crystal in the cooling crystalliser. Afterwards in the malaxator or the receiver, there is no more growth there. And the only growth can be done afterwards is the batch pan, but this is more the crystallisation part. So in the cooling crystalliser, no. The limit is 140 μm. Okay. So the next question comes from Catherine. How do you explain the 50% increase in capacity? I guess they are relating to Santa Matilde. Fine reduction or better MA? No. It was actually a very good question. Thanks. And this is what they normally do in the cane industry is that they have one batch pan that works exclusively to do the seed. And let's say, for example, they have another 3 batch pans for the crystallisation. So when you separate the seed from this batch pan, you're basically adding 1/4 of production to the batch pan crystallisations. Instead of using 3, you're going to use 4. Now, with the automation, you're going to also increase the capacity in the batch pans. And so using this separating the seeding and doing the automation of the batch pans, you will increase the production, for the yield in the crystallisation for A or refinery. Okay, Hans, here's one question which is quite related to that one. Do we have any experience if it's possible to adopt the system without changing the batch pans to be automated? No, we don't have an experience doing this without the automation of the batch pans. We do not recommend it. We recommend... If you are going to do this investment, which will bring you, like, quite a lot of advantages, we recommend doing it with the automation of the batch pans. It will help incredible the usage of both products, the automation of the batch pans and the cooling crystalliser in your end results. Like I said before, the return for investment maybe a little bit, not a year, but we're talking about maybe 2 years at most. So the investment is worth it. Okay, so one additional question. What is meant by batch pan automation? So does BMA produce a control strategy for the batch pan? Yes. So the batch pan automation, what we mean like that in BMA is that it will be controlled completely in a control room and not in the factory. So that is the difference between batch pan automation and normal batch pan usage, where you have all the people, all the workers beside the batch pan, using it and doing it manually. What we do is, everything is automated, The automatic valves, the steerer, the brix measurement, everything is done automatically and not manually. Yup. Okay, they asked me quite similar questions. I guess this one is from Indonesia. Kind regards to you ! So the combination of this cooling crystal system together with a VKT, what is the expected CV? Do we have any actual figures on that? Yes, we have some figures. And I don't have it right now, but we have... I think... I think we have CVs around 25 for the VKT, for A or refinery. But this can be sent in the comments afterwards with the real values. I don't have them with me right now. Yeah, I think they can simply send it to sales@bma-de.com email address, and then we can give you some more details about those figures. Yes. There's one question related to the slurry. So what do you think is the best chemical to make slurry or what is BMA using? We use isopropanol. And that's what we use, normally. we have not used any other chemicals here. Okay, so I think for today, we have still a lot of questions and here coming up some few more. But due to the time, I would like to ask you to keep on asking questions, we will answer them afterwards and also add them all to our presentation, which will be uploaded to the YouTube channel. So once again, thank you so much, Hans, for joining us today! It was a pleasure to talk to you and hear about this presentation. And yeah, guys, so please stay tuned, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and we will see each other in our next webinar, which is coming in the next few weeks or month, and stay tuned. And Hans, see you the next time! Thank you so much! Thank you! Take care! Bye bye!