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Bagasse as Boiling Fuel

Bagasse - the fibrous residue from sugarcane crushing - is the standard renewable boiling fuel for jaggery (bellam) and traditional khandsari units. Each kg of cane yields about 0.3 kg of bagasse with calorific value ~7500-9500 kJ/kg, enough to evaporate the water in the same crusher's juice load.

Properties

  • Yield Per Cane: ~0.3 kg bagasse per kg cane
  • Calorific Value: ~7500-9500 kJ/kg dry bagasse
  • Use: open-pan juice boiling; mill cogeneration of steam and power

Use

In modern sugar mills bagasse is also used for cogeneration of process steam and grid power. ICAR-SBI and ICAR-IISR Lucknow document that bagasse-fuelled open-pan jaggery making is self-sufficient in fuel and avoids fossil-fuel boiling.

See also: Sugarcane Crop, Jaggery Making Bellam, Sugarcane Ratoon Crop, Staggered Planting Sugarcane, Sugarcane Mealy Bug, Sugarcane Whitefly.

References

  1. Jaggery from Sugar Cane - Technopreneur. https://www.techno-preneur.net/technology/project-profiles/food/cane.html