The pH is raised with lime and the mixture is heated to around 100 degrees C for several hours. The lime causes suspended materials, proteins, waxes, and fats to precipitate. Further impurities are allowed to settle in large containers and are removed from the bottom. This residue is known as filter cake or filter mud. The clear juice is again heated in a series of evaporators to form crystals and separated from the molasses in centrifuges.
Sugar cane has many other uses besides the production of sugars.
Molasses is a by-product of the manufacturing of cane sugar. It is a residual syrup from which no more crystalline sucrose can be obtained by simple techniques. The uses of molasses are many. Starting around 1850 it was often used as a fertilizer for cane soils, however this use is negligible today. Its use as a stockfeed can be dated back to at least 1811 in Germany.