The chromatographic separation processes used in the beet sugar industry fo
r the separation of sucrose from molasses have advanced significantly durin
g the last 15 years. Developments in chromatographic separation have seen t
he movement from batch separations to continuous separations biased on both
simulated moving bed systems and sequential systems. Systems in use today
separate two or three components. Instrumentation used on chromatographic s
eparators typically consists of conductivity detectors and on-line refracto
meters.
This paper describes the use of on-line NIR for the determination of sucros
e, rds, betaine, and solution absorbance, It shows the work completed on th
e determination of calibrations for these substances, and provides examples
on the use of data available from an on-line NIR spectrophotometer.