Better Lime Purification of Raw Sugar Beet Juice by Advanced Fenton Oxidation Process

This work discusses the effects of Fenton oxidation pre-treatment on the lime purification of raw sugar beet juice using iron powder and hydrogen peroxide. During Fenton oxidation, particular attention was paid to the effect of reaction time and dosage of Fenton′s reagent to improve purification indexes of the raw juice throughout the clarification process. The total concentration of lime used for the purification was varied from 4.0 to 16.0 g of CaO/100 mL of juice. The results showed that higher color and total phenolic removal were achieved with an increase in H₂O₂ dosage and reaction time. At an initial pH of less than 6.2 and H₂O₂ concentration of 7000.0 ppm, color removal reached 85% and approximately 81% of total phenolic removal was achieved at a reaction time of 30 min (Treatment 5). It suggests that the quantity of CaO required for the efficient juice purification may be decreased from 16.0 g/100 mL for the control juice to approximately 12.0 g/100 mL for the juice obtained from Treatment 5. Fenton oxidation process improved the quality indexes of the purified juice, and can be combined with a conventional clarification process to achieve juice with high purity and low color.