IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR
Year: 1881

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Robert Lake at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 9th May 1881. A communication
from abroad by Abel Brear, of Saugatuck, Connecticut, United States of
America.
WILLIAM ROBERT LAKE, of the Firm of Haseltine, Lake, & Co., Patent
Agents, Southampton Buildings, London. "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE
OF SUGAR." [A communication from abroad by Abel Brear, of Saugatuck,
Connecticut, United States of America.]
My Invention relates to the treatment of saccharine liquids in the manufacture
of sugar as obtained from the sugar-cane; also to the treatment of sweets, and it
consists in treating the liquid with bicarbonate of soda and borax, or their chemical
equivalents for arresting the acidification and fermentation, and for assisting and
increasing granulation, the borax arresting fermentation, and the bicarbonate of
soda arresting the acidification and assisting and increasing the granulation.
The juice of the cane is extracted in any of the well known ways and subse-
quently defecated, after which it is clarified. These several steps are so well known
that it would be superfluous to enumerate them in this Specification, and especially
so since my Invention has no reference to changes in the general manipulation of
the liquid, but only to the granulation and to the arrest of fermentation and
acidification thereof by the use of bicarbonate of soda and borax.
After the saccharine liquid has been placed in the clarifier, I therein treat it
with bicarbonate of soda and borax. I first make a solution by dissolving
bicarbonate of soda and borax in the proportion of one pound of the former to one
ounce of the latter, to which may be added two ounces of nitrate of soda if found
desirable in one gallon of water or the saccharine liquid, I then place this solution
in the clarifier containing, say, eight hundred gallons of the saccharine juice of the
cane while the latter is warm, although it need not be warm, but when warm the
granulation is accelerated. As soon as the solution is placed in the saccharine
liquid and said liquid becomes heated, the process of granulation commences, and
almost instantaneously the formation of the globules and then the grains is
noticeable, and as the treatment continues the size of the grains increases, the size
thereof varying with the length of time the liquid is subjected to the action of the
bicarbonate of soda and the borax.

page_text: The manipulation of the liquid while in the clarifier, as well as before its
introduction therein, and after the removal of the grains and syrup therefrom is
the same as that ordinarily practised, with the exception that by the use of the
bicarbonate of soda and the borax the length of time of treatment is shortened
and the granulation increased, the increase being, say, twenty-five per cent.
or more.
Instead of defecating the liquid it may be run direct from the mill into the
clarifier or into evaporating pans, and there treated with the bicarbonate of soda
and the borax.
The bicarbonate of soda and borax also act as a clarifier.
The size of the grains depends upon the length of time of the treatment, and I
have obtained the most satisfactory results by the use of the bicarbonate of soda
and borax in the proportions stated, but still I do not limit myself to these
proportions, for I have used the bicarbonate of soda and borax in other proportions,
sometimes the bicarbonate of soda being increased and sometimes the borax, and
in all cases the results have been more satisfactory than when not used at all, and
while I have used the borax by itself and the bicarbonate of soda by itself, yet the
results have been different and not as satisfactory as when used together.
borax alone, which I used in quantity varying from a half pound down to one
ounce, had the effect of arresting fermentation, and the bicarbonate of soda alone,
used in quantity varying from one ounce to one pound, arrested the acidification
and increased the granulation; but when the two were used together the granulation
was greater than when the bicarbonate of soda was used alone, and at the same
time the fermentation and acidification were arrested.
The