ChElec 501

Sugar Engineering 2
Meeting # ??
08 Nature of Sugar Colorants
Aug. 02, 2017

1
 Nature of Sugar Colorants
Color is the principal control parameter in the sugar
refinery. It is easily measured important specification
of the raw sugar as well as for refined products.
Sugar is not colored in the same way that, for
example, iron rust is reddish. In rust, the red color is
the property of the substance itself, whereas sugar is
colorless, irrespective of its purity
It is the color of the non-sugar contaminants that is
responsible for the color of raw sugar and the
refinery sugar products.
Non-sugars are not necessarily undesireable, and are
essntial components of brown sugar
 Moreover, since the amount of impurity responsible
for the measured color rarely known, measurements
are typically normalized not on the concentration of
colorants, but instead on brix, which approximates the
amount of sugar present in the sample.
Consequently, different samples do not exhibit Beers
law agreement. That is all, all samples containing for
example 0.1% methylene blue, have the same
absorbance, but not for all for example 45 , all 45 brix
sugar solution.
Clarification and filtration, which remove suspended
solids and colloidal matters, may be considered pre-
treatments for removing soluble impurities such as
color by adsorption processes.
 These techniques also remove colorless species such
as ash, as well as some complexed colloids and
colorless organic non-sugar.
Because of the formation of such adducts, the line
between colorants and colorless constiuents especially
those of high molecular weights, are not sharply
drawn. Thus we observe soluble color removal in
clarification, and polysaccharide removal in
decolorization.
Type of Colorants
Colorants are classified into these categories:
1) Phenolics
These are derived from to a considerable extent
enzymatically, from flavonoids and cinnamic acid
precursors naturally occuring in canes. These are the
same kind of substance responsible of colors of
flowers. They are aromatic materials. Their
important characteristic is pH sensitivity, i.e. there
absorbance changes markedly with pH.
2) Melanoidins
These are dark materials and are formed by reaction
of sugars with proteins or amino acids. The same
Maillard or browning reactions are observed when
 others foods such as bread and coffee beans are
baked or roasted. Although the protein content of
raw sugar ordinarily low, the high tinctural character
of these substances can result in significant color.
3) Caramels
At elevated temperature, sugar as well as other
carbohydrates are thermally degraded to complex
reaction products mixture that includes highly
colored substances maybe yellow, brown,or black
depending on the degree of reaction. Most refinery
operations are done hot liquors, caramelization can
occur more orl less frequently particularly on heated
surfaces.
4) Invert degradation products
Measureable levels of glucose and fructose in all but
the highest purity refinery streams. In the high pH
region, these suabtances are very susceptible to
rapid darkening. They have moderate pH sensitivity.
Under mildly acidic condition, different sets of
darkening reactions takes place to brown polymers.