Sugar: Supplying an Ingredient [108] (continued)

In 1890, E. W. Knox read a paper to the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science (the forerunner of ANZAAS) and in it he detailed the current state of the application of chemistry in CSR's mills and refineries. There was a central laboratory with five or six people and laboratories at all nine mills and three refineries. The analytical work covered everything including the bone char used for decolourizing syrups and all waste products, bagasse used for fuel, ash for fertilizer and condensate used for watering megass for second stage crushing and for steam raising. Molasses was a by-product for which there was little use, but some ammonium sulphate was obtained in the preparation of bone char and the spent bone char itself could be used in the manufacture of superphosphate.

Knox admitted that mill management had at first scorned the introduction of chemists, an attitude by no means confined to his company or his industry, but he added two other advantages to the demonstrated financial benefits of chemical control. One was the professional probity of chemists and the other was the intellectual stimulation deriving from discussions with them of their findings. It was not surprising, then, that he was moving men with chemical training into plant management.

Though CSR was the pacemaker, there seems little doubt that Australian sugar technology remained abreast or even ahead of world trends. Cane 'preparation', e.g., by shredding, was used as early as 1914, and a hammer mill (the Searby shredder) was installed at Tully in the mid-twenties and increased cane throughput by 20 per cent. In 1928, the Bureau of Sugar Experiment stations, which had been established in 1900 mainly to improve agricultural practices in the sugar industry, added a Division of Mill Technology. Contributions have been made to clarification, sugar boiling, pan design and other aspects of mill technology. In 1939, a mains operated pH meter, developed by the BSES to measure pH continuously in the mill liquors was introduced. This was a considerable achievement for the time.

The Queensland (now Australian) Society of Sugar Cane Technologists was established in 1929 and has made a significant contribution to the Australian sugar industry from that time. It is clear from the papers presented at the society's early annual conferences that Australian mills were already quickly adopting technological advances as they became available. Automatic mill speed control had been developed by J. Killer, a legendary Queensland sugar mill engineer, and in the 1930s the CSR pressure feeder was developed. Other important innovations in this period included the 'dirty top' roll to improve the grip on the cane and the Killer system of clarification/maceration which avoids the need for a mud filter. Good milling trials at Kalamia and other mills and conference discussion of the relative merits of 'hot' and 'cold' maceration were further evidence of a technologically innovative industry.

Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering