Ultraviolet irradiation as an alternative to purify the sugarcane juice for sugar and ethanol production

The use of non-thermal radiation technology such as ultraviolet can simplify the process of clarification of sugarcane juice. Thus, the objective of this study was to purify the sugarcane juice by ultraviolet irradiation to produce sugar and ethanol. In the laboratory experiment physicochemical analyzes were performed – turbidity, color, pH and °Brix plus microbiological tests. For data analysis was used analysis of variance – ANOVA – followed by Tukey test and the nonparametric test of Kruskall-Wallis, all with significance level 0.05. The power of 250 W and an exposure time of 3 min. are more appropriate, where variations in the °Brix and pH were not significant, color and turbidity were reduced and no fungal contamination accompanied with the reduction of the number of colonies of aerobic and facultative bacteria. With this, it proposes changes to the production of sugar and ethanol production process by eliminating steps of sulfitation, liming, heating and decanting by ultraviolet irradiation.