OBJECTIVE:

1. To synthesis crystallised suger from sugarcane juice.

2. To study the percentage yield of the sugar obtained from fresh sugarcane juice.
3. To investigate the physical properties of sugar.

INTRODUCTION:
Sugar is a broad term applied to a large number of carbohydrates present in many
plants and characterized by a more or less sweet taste. The primary sugar, glucose, is a
product of photosynthesis and occurs in all green plants. In most plants, the sugars occur as a
mixture that cannot readily be separated into the components. In the sap of some plants, the
sugar mixtures are condensed into syrup. Juices of sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum) and
sugar beet (Beta vulgaris) are rich in pure sucrose, although beet sugar is generally much less
sweet than cane sugar. These two sugar crops are the main sources of commercial sucrose.
For centuries before crystallised sugar was produced, it was not plentiful as it is today
and honey was used for sweetening in most parts of the world. In some places, raw sugar
cane was chewed to extract its sweetness. Sugar cane is a grass that can grow nearly 20 feet
tall. When harvested, the leaves are removed and the stalks are cut and squeezed to extract
the juices that will later be processed into sugar. In sugar cane processing plants, the juice is
cleaned with lime (a mineral similar to chalk), and then the water is boiled off, leaving a
sugar syrup. Unlike evaporating salt / water mixtures, evaporating sugar syrup to retrieve
sugar crystals is a bit more complex. Sugar processing plants will often add sugar dust to the
saturated syrup to help initiate the crystallization process. After crystals have formed, the
sugar is then tossed, dried, and later refined into table sugar. The byproduct of sugar
processing is molasses, which is either used for cattle food or alcohol distillation.

Figure 1: The flowchart of sugar processing from sugarcane

To synthesis sugar, sugar cane must be crushed to extract the juice. The crushing
process must break up the hard nodes of the cane and flatten the stems. The juice is collected,
filtered and sometimes treated and then boiled to drive off the excess water. The dried cane
residue (bagasse) is often used as fuel for this process. Moreover, the remaining liquid is
allowed to set into a solid mass known as jaggery, gur, chancaca or panela.
In this experiment, the sugarcane juice is cleaned with calcium hydroxide before
evaporating it to concentrate the sweetness. The Ca(OH)2 is derived from quick lime, calcium
oxide or CaO, by adding water. That reaction sequence is: CaO + H2O Ca(OH)2. Then,
the sugarcane juice is heated to 75 C, which, combined with the slaked lime, decomposes
the enzymes that would break down the sugar. The predominant enzyme is invertase, a large
molecule that splits the disaccharide, sucrose or table sugar, into two monosaccharides,
glucose and fructose. Boiling greatly increases the concentration of sugar, they can dissolve
much sugar in boiling water, but as the solution cools, sugar crystallizes out. At this stage, the
sugar is brown due to the presence of traces of the mother liquor (molasses). The
concentrated syrup is then evaporated for 7 days and the sugar is formed.