According to sugar.org, sugar cane stalks are harvested from fields in U.S. locations such as Florida, Louisiana and Texas and global countries such as India, Brazil, Australia, Thailand, Mexico and China. At the sugar mill, the sugar cane stalks are washed and cut into shreds. Huge rollers press sugar cane juice out of these shredded stalks.

Once the cane arrives at the mill it is weighed and then shredded. The shredding breaks the fibrous stalks apart, bursting the cells that contain the sweet juice. Following this, the cane is crushed through a series of rollers, separating the juice from the leftover fibrous material. The leftover material is used to fuel the mill’s furnaces. Having extracted the juice, impurities need to be removed. This is done by adding lime and heating. The clear juice is then concentrated by boiling under a vacuum into a syrup.

The juice is then clarified, concentrated and crystalized. The crystals are spun in a centrifuge to remove the liquid and produce golden raw sugar (this is 96–98 percent sucrose). Raw sugar is transported to a cane sugar refinery, where it will be further purified.

The amount of molasses left on the crystals or added back to the sugar crystals determines which type of sugar is produced. Beyond the traditional white granulated sugar and light and dark brown sugars, there are lightly colored sugars, golden or tan, produced for specialty uses. As for the materials leftover from sugar processing, many of them are recycled and reused. For example, sugar cane refining results in leftover cane fiber is called bagasse. This bagasse is used to generate electricity for sugar mills and even their surrounding communities.

The global production of sugarcane in 2019–2020 was reduced due to limited production in India, Brazil and the United States. Unfortunately, the industry suffers the same fate as many food and beverage markets where high production costs, seasonal weather, government policies and outdated machinery and production prevent the global expansion at a greater pace. Shortages of skilled labor for harvesting and transporting sugarcane has also caused production limitations.

Customization and Modularity
Modularity can be considered the foundation of Rossi. Modular products and “modular” processes allow Rossi to engineer a solution for almost every industrial application requiring a gearmotor or gear reducer. Modularity means flexibility for the engineers behind the scenes and the ability to provide customers with a wider range of options, faster delivery and most important of all, competitiveness. The limitless configurations available allow Rossi to deliver standard or custom solutions in a cost-effective manner.

MAV and Rossi have been collaborating for over a decade, providing both standard and custom solutions across a range of industries. By combining Rossi’s high-performance gearboxes with MAV’s keyless locking device, the partnership has delivered a flexible and reliable solution for sugar mills, improving the efficiency and durability of power transmission systems.

“The MAV solution was to design a longer shrink disc to reduce the contact pressure on the shaft and reduce the intensity of mechanical stress, respecting the space constraints imposed by Rossi,” Balestrieri said.