Sugar – starch – and carbohydrates – Processes – Carbohydrate manufacture and refining
Reexamination Certificate
2002-11-18
2004-08-03
Brunsman, David (Department: 1755)
Sugar, starch, and carbohydrates
Processes
Carbohydrate manufacture and refining
C127S029000, C127S044000, C127S046100, C127S046200, C127S055000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06770147
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for the production of sugar or sugar-containing products from sugar-containing vegetable raw materials.
Sugar (sucrose) and sugar products are primarily obtained from the vegetable raw materials, such as sugar beets and sugar cane, by mechanically disintegrating these plants and extracting, or pressing out, sugar-containing solutions from the plant parts.
All of the sugar-containing media and, in particular, those that are directly obtained from agricultural raw materials are subject to microbiological decay through bacteria, yeasts, and mold within certain temperature ranges, pH values, and concentration limits. The risk of infestation by microorganisms in food-technological processes, both during continuous operation and during the storage of raw and intermediate products, always entails considerable hazards. Microorganisms can degrade sugars contained in the raw materials to acids and gaseous, even partially explosive metabolic products, or cause extremely high germ contents in the end products. Moreover, the process for the production of sugar from beets and sugarcane risks a microbial cleavage of the disaccharide sucrose into the monosaccharides glucose and fructose, which involves further disadvantages in addition to the immediate loss of sucrose, causing, for instance, a more intense coloration of the syrup, a higher need for alkalizing agents, and an increased amount of molasses occurred.
At temperatures of less than 50° C., which are applied during the extraction of juice by mechanical cell opening, the sugar-containing extraction solutions are subject to decay by all the microorganisms mentioned, i.e., yeasts, mold, and bacteria. However, when extracting juices by thermal cell opening at temperatures above 50° C., only thermophilic bacteria will still be capable of reproduction. An example of such a thermal extraction method is the presently widely applied extraction of sugar beets for the purpose of sugar production.
In extraction plants, thermophilic bacteria, as a rule, are combated by the batch-wise or continuous addition of germ-inhibiting or germ-killing auxiliaries to the juice flow or perishable intermediate products. In the sugar industry, formalin, dithio-carbamates, peracetic acid, ammonium bisulfite, quaternary ammonium bases etc. are, for instance, used to this end.
Recently, some sugar factories also have used hop products as natural agents to combat microorganisms, if the addition of chemical agents is undesired or prohibited by law (EP-0 681 029 A; Pollach et al., Zuckerindustrie 124 (8) (1999), 622-637; Pollach et al., Zuckerindustrie 121 (2) (1996), 919-926; Hein et al., Zuckerindustrie 122 (12) (1997), 940-949). In doing so, it turned out that there was no real alternative to this natural agent, which is why it has not been possible so far to pass over to another natural agent when selecting hop bitter acid-resistant bacterial strains or adapting bacterial strains to hop products, in order to thereby combat such a selection or adaptation. Moreover, suitable hop products at economically reasonable prices such as &bgr;-hop acids are available on the market only in limited quantities as byproducts occurring in the production of isoalpha acids. Also from this results the need for additional natural auxiliary agents to combat microorganisms.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is accordingly an object of the invention to provide a method for the production of sugar or sugar-containing products from sugar-containing vegetable raw materials, sugar and sugar-containing products made by the method, and extraction solution for use in the method that overcome the hereinafore-mentioned disadvantages of the heretofore-known methods and products of this general type and that suppresses the growth of undesired microbes in the context of industrial sugar production processes can be suppressed.
With the foregoing and other objects in view, there is provided, in accordance with the invention, a method for producing sugar or sugar-containing products from sugar-containing plant raw materials, which is characterized in that the production is at least partially carried out in the presence of added natural food-compatible resins. The plant raw materials are generally vegetable raw materials.
Surprisingly, an efficient and cost-effective option to effectively inhibit the growth of undesired microbes could be provided by the addition of such resins in the course of industrial sugar-production processes. The addition according to the invention of food-compatible resins is particularly effective in the inactivation of thermophilic and/or osmophilic microorganisms, which constitute particularly persistent sources interfering in the sugar-production process, which are difficult to combat.
These resins are not necessarily required to be present during the whole production process. According to the invention, the use of these resins is also feasible merely in selected process steps. According to the invention, the partial or temporary presence of the added resins above all proved successful under those conditions at which thermophilic and osmophilic microorganisms would grow particularly well. Yet, the resin addition according to the invention is also suitable for low temperatures, particularly because it turned out that undesired germs could be selectively reduced or suppressed at those temperatures as well.
According to the invention, sugar beets and sugar cane are above all envisaged as vegetable raw materials. In principle, the method according to the invention is, however, applicable to alls sorts of vegetable starting materials such as, e.g., in the sugar production departing from sugar palms, dates, sugar maize, tree juices like, e.g., maple juice, etc.
It was shown that the resins added according to the invention exhibited anti-microbial activities also in the primarily aqueous surroundings of sugar production. Due to the good solubility of these products in alcoholic solutions, it has so far been anticipated that such products can be used only in alcoholic food stuffs (retsina) with alcohol levels of, for instance, 10% or more. However, according to the invention, it was found that the added food-compatible resins could be effectively used in efficient concentrations also in large-scale sugar production.
According to the invention, any food-compatible resins as described, for instance, in “Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry”, Vol. A23 (1993), pp 73-88 can be employed, including, for instance, tree resins and, in particular, gum rosins like, e.g., benzoin, colophony, myrrh, and balsam of Tolu. According to the invention, colophony products and derivatives are above all preferred for economic reasons. Such products are, for instance, described in Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, Vol. A23 (1993), pp 79-88 (expressly incorporated by reference).
In a preferred manner, the colophony (preparations) or colophony derivatives described there are, above all, used as natural resins according to the invention. Preferably, a dissolved, emulsified or dispersed, or pasty rosin product is used, which is preferably based on rosin, colophonium, rosin acids, rosin acid salts (resin esters), undenatured pine resin derivatives (i.e., derivatives obtained without the influence of strong acids or bases). According to the invention, colophony derivates also encompass chemically synthesized colophony single components or colophony single components isolated from colophony products such as, for instance, levopimaric acid, neoabietic acid, palustric acid, abietic acid, dehydroabietic acid, tetra-hydroabietic acid, dihydroabietic acid, pimaric acid and isopimaric acid. The derivatization of colophony may also include hydration, polymerization, addition reactions, esterification, nitrilation, amination, etc.
Preferably, also molten products and/or products mixed with viscosity-reducing agents such as, e.g., alcohol or glycerol, can be used. Thus, it is, for instance, possible to dose c
Hein Walter
Pollach Günter
Brunsman David
Greenberg Laurence A.
Locher Ralph E.
Stemer Werner H.
Zuckerforschung Tulln Gesellschaft m.b.H.
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