Lynne Wong's PhD thesis

Figure 3.7. Custom-built fibre-pith separator.
3.4 EXPERIMENTAL
The actual method used for fibre extraction from sugar cane samples is detailed in the
following section.
3.4.1 Materials
The samples used for fibre extraction are shown in Table 3.3. The cane harvested in 2003
consisted of four varieties: R 579, R 570, M 1557/70 and M 1400/86, each aged 36, 44 and
52 weeks. The cane variety R 570 harvested in 2001 aged 37, 44 and 52 weeks was also
included in this report for comparison purposes. For each sample, three replicates
consisting of four cane stalks were processed.
3.4.2 Equipment
The Jeffco cutter-grinder described in Section 2.1.2 was used to pre-treat peeled cane stalk,
rind, dry leaves and green leaves prior to fibre extraction in a Jeffco wet disintegrator.
The Jeffco wet disintegrator used (Fig 3.6) was a Model 292 with a water-jacketed 7 L-
bowl and a standard 50 Hz AC motor of 2250 W, 3 phase, 2880 rpm and 415 volt. The
bowl unit could be easily lowered or raised for sample disintegration and tilted for sample
unloading. Up to four blades could be fitted at right angles to each other on the central
vertical spindle which can be rotated at high speed to disintegrate the cane sample.
A Pinette Emidecau press (see Section 2.1.2) was used to press out liquid from fibre cake
prepared from sugar cane components.
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