Accurate milk of lime dosing – A study into valve solutions for milk of lime control.

Abstract

Milk of lime is used to capture and remove impurities in the juice of sugar cane. Accurate lime dosing is essential to ensure an efficient, high quality sugar juice purification stage and a pH value of between 7.5-8.2 for the mixed juice.  The properties of milk of lime cause scaling, jamming and erosion of flow control equipment like pipes, valves and pumps. More often than not, this leads to an increased cost of maintenance, loss of milk of lime, and inaccurate level of pH of the mixed juice affecting the equipment and extraction of sugar crystals.  In this presentation, I will review the challenges which valves face due to scaling, media build up, and internal wear and tear from the suspended solids in milk of lime. Additionally, I will review valve solutions which are able to mitigate these issues while enhancing the service life and reliability of the valve. These solutions revolve around the inclusion of specialty materials and design modifications within Bray’s highly engineered products created for use in the Sugar industry.