Sugarcane is an important industrial crop in South China, mainly grown in Guangdong, Guangxi, Yuennan and Fujian Provinces. State farms are important cane producers. They produce about one-tenth of the nation’s total cane. These sugar companies are integrated enterprises including farm and milling activities but, due to declining sugar prices, they are not particularly profitable. Under the “Re...

BACKGROUND Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup, as well as cane sugar, has been implicated in the rise of the obesity and diabetes epidemics. To date, however, no reliable biomarker for the consumption of these sweeteners is available. OBJECTIVE The objective of the study was to determine the natural abundance stable-carbon-isotope signature of commonly consumed foods of plant origin. D...

The production of slime by microorganisms in the sugar cane juice of sugar mills has been primarily attributed to Leuconostoc mesenteroides (McCleskey, Faville, and Barnett, J. Bacteriol., 54, 697, 1947). In a study of the epiphytic microflora of sugar cane, Mayeux and Colmer (Sugar J., 23, 28, 1960) reported the presence of many organisms on the growing plant but failed to show the presence of...

All energy scenarios show a shift toward an increased percentage of renewable energy sources, including biomass. This study gives an overview of water footprints (WFs) of bioenergy from 12 crops that currently contribute the most to global agricultural production: barley, cassava, maize, potato, rapeseed, rice, rye, sorghum, soybean, sugar beet, sugar cane, and wheat. In addition, this study in...

Steam injection for power and efficiency augmentation in aeroderivative gas turbines has been commercially established for natural gas-fired cogeneration since 1980. Steam-injected gas turbines fired with coal and biomass are being developed. A performance and economic assessment of biomass integratedgasifier steam-injected gas turbine (BIGISTIG) cogeneration systems is carried out here. A deta...

BACKGROUND Bioethanol produced from the lignocellulosic fractions of sugar cane (bagasse and leaves), i.e. second generation (2G) bioethanol, has a promising market potential as an automotive fuel; however, the process is still under investigation on pilot/demonstration scale. From a process perspective, improvements in plant design can lower the production cost, providing better profitability ...

Sugar cane processing sites are characterised by high sugar/hemicellulose levels, available moisture and warm conditions, and are relatively unexplored unique microbial environments. The PhyloChip microarray was used to investigate bacterial diversity and community composition in three Australian sugar cane processing plants. These ecosystems were highly complex and dominated by four main Phyla...