From the Editor
Luis Ayala
In past articles I’ve written about the creativity involved in sugarcane production. In many countries around the world, the very name of the sugar mills is “Ingenio” (Spanish) or “Engehno” (Portuguese). The word “Engine” in English is derived from the same root: the word “ingenious,” which comes to us from the French “ingénieux,” which in turn came from the Latin “ingeniosus,” derived from “ingenium,” meaning ‘mind, intellect.’
The modern definition of ingenious is: in·ge·nious (in-ˈjēn-yəs)
- having or showing an unusual aptitude for discovering, inventing, or contriving
- marked by originality, resourcefulness, and cleverness in conception or execution
- showing or calling for intelligence, aptitude, or discernment
It is no surprise that such name would be used to describe the agglomeration of diverse disciplines needed to construct and operate a sugarcane mill, including engineering, physics, chemistry and, in modern mills, biology.
Sugar mills process a lot of sugarcane, in order to extract the juice required to feed the evaporators and centrifuges that ultimately produce the crystallized sugar the world craves. This process also leaves behind co-products, such as molasses (cane syrup) and bagasse (cane fiber). I called these co-products and not waste products because their high commercial value: molasses contain a very high concentration of sugars that are excellent as feedstock or as fermentation stock, while the bagasse’s combustion potential can -and very often does- provide all the steam and electricity needed for sugar mills to operate.
Despite the above achievements, I know more innovations are still waiting beyond the horizon. Thus, I am filled with joy every time I learn about products/applications such as Sugarcrete® (see pg. 20).
Cheers!
Luis Ayala,
Editor and Publisher
http://www.linkedin.com/in/rumconsultant