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Rotoshear Internally Fed Rotating Drum Screen - Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers

Challenge

In order to extract sugar from sugar cane, the cane must be washed, shredded and squeezed. At Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers, cush cush, the juice produced in this process, contains bagasse or fibers that must be removed before the juice can be further processed into sugar.

To separate the bagasse from the cush cush, Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers used eight large 5' x 5' homemade sidehill screens. The loading is extremely heavy and operation is continuous, 24-hours a day, five days a week for a 6-month processing season. The problem with these homemade static screens was that they could not handle the heavy loading and discharged too much juice with the bagasse. Since the bagasse off the screen was re-crushed, the excess liquid created operational problems.

Solution

Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers purchased two heavy-duty Rotoshear® Screens, Model HRS6096 x 0.040", to replace their eight sidehill screens. The screens were specially designed and further modified in the field to meet the production load of 450 TPH of sugar. Screening the heavy cellulose fibers is an extremely tough application, and the Rotoshear units did well.

The bagasse drains well and does not flood the screen surface and add excessive liquid to the crushing operation. The screens are automatic and self-cleaning, which helps from a maintenance and production standpoint. Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers is quite pleased with their automatic screening process.