A sugar cane mill can refer to a factory that processes sugar cane to produce raw or white sugar. It can also mean the piece of equipment that crushes the sticks of sugar cane to extract the juice
There are a number of steps in producing raw sugar from cane:
Cane receiving and unloading (receive the cane at the factory and unload it from the transport vehicles)
Cane preparation (cutting and shredding cane to prepare it for juice extraction)
Juice extraction (two technologies are in common use; milling or diffusion)
Juice clarification (remove suspended solids from the juice, typically mud, waxes, fibres)
Juice evaporation (to concentrate the juice to a thick syrup of about 65°brix)
Crystallisation
Separation of the sugar crystals from the mother liquor, most done by centrifugal machines
Sugar drying
Packaging and delivery
These processing steps will produce a brown or raw sugar. Mill white sugar also known as plantation white sugar can be produced by introducing some form of colour removal process (often sulphitation) between the juice clarification and the juice evaporation stages mentioned above.[1] The raw sugar produced is often refined to produce white sugar. This sugar refining can be done either at a completely separate factory or at a back-end refinery which is attached to the raw sugar factory.
