Cooling final molasses through a plate heat exchanger

Staff from the Sugar Research Institute (SRI) tried to interest Australian mills in this device from 1982, and maintained a close liaison with manufacturers of plate exchangers for this application. However, the strong possibility of operational instability, due to the large dependence of molasses viscosity on temperature, was a major concern. The reported poor performance of a unit in a Fijian mill in 1989 supported these doubts. This report covers the successful use of the first plate heat exchanger to cool the total production of molasses from an Australian sugar mill.