Experimental Evaluation of the Performance of a Horizontally Oriented Muscovado Sugar Crystallizer Equipped with Contra-Rotating Double Ribbon Agitator Blades

The demand for muscovado sugar has increased significantly in various regions in the past few years, hence, creating a new market for small scale industries (Transparency Market Research, 2018), but a significant problem ensues once exporting, marketing, and distribution come to play due to lack of processing facilities and unavailability of processing machines in particular areas, specifically in the crystallization phase. The focus of this study is to design and fabricate a mechanized muscovado crystallizer with an agitator consisting of contra-rotating double ribbon blades and analyze the physicochemical properties of the muscovado sugar produced specifically in terms of Polarization, Moisture Content, Ash Content, and Reducing Sugars and compare it to the existing design. Results of the analysis of the physicochemical properties of the muscovado sugar sample produced with the new design exhibited an 86.4% Polarization and 2.78% Moisture Content, whereas the muscovado sugar produced from the previous design exhibited 85% and 3.46% respectively. Utilizing One-way Analysis of Variances (ANOVA) as the statistical tool, the researchers concluded that there is a positive significant difference between the physicochemical properties (i.e., Polarization and Moisture Content) of the muscovado sugar produced with the crystallizer equipped with contra-rotating double ribbon agitator blades and the physicochemical properties of the muscovado sugar produced with the crystallizer equipped with double flight helical ribbon blade agitator.