SUGAR, KNOWN IN ANTIQUITY. HAS FOUND A WEALTH OF NEW APPLICATIONS WITHIN OUR
S
VG.4R as such \vas urilcnurvn in EJrope until 328 R . c . , rvlien one of . i l e w n d e r the Ciwat’s admiral6 brought soiiie, i l l primitive raiv f o r m , 11ark to Gwece from Iridia. Rut even the Orientals never leuixrd hoiv to refine sugar until a successful ~ J ~ O C ~ was W dewlopcd by the Persians in 500 .i.r). T h e Persians kept, their refining tc:chriiqur a closely guarded e e r e t , nhile a t the same time they proiiiotrd it growing sugar trade ivith Europe. ugar cane n-as first tulteu t o Europe in 1000 A D . and gron-u in irily. T h e goveriinirrrt of T-enice offered 100,000 crowns to LiiiJ-one who not on]!, could discover u n u y t o refine raw sugar lirit \vould make known the process. ;\t Ic~ngll.this \vas accomplished in 1470, rtritf en en ice 1)ec:mie Europe’s f r i i ~ i i i ( i f sugar. Engl:ind sut>ceeded 74 ~ - i ~ t rIrttei s i r i (1 i~~fiiiiiig process of her own and nioveil into first pl:i(:(%;I- 1 ~ : i i r u I i ~ ~ a t l tlisprnser of the rrfiiicd piuduct,
Meanwhile, Columbus had taken sugar canc t o San Dorningo on his second trip t o the New World. And in 1511, Diego T’elasquez started the cult~ivationof cane at the eastern end of Cuba. T h e natives, severely overworked, died off rapidly. To kec.p his plantations going, Velasquez ordered t h a t shiploads of slaves be sent over from Africa. T h u s began the institution of slaver)in the S e w World. Sugar cane was introduced into Puerto Rico in 1515, and by 1650 i t had been taken into all of the West Indian islands. Kew York built a sugar refinery in 1689, a full 145 years after London had entered the field. Louisiana did not introduce qugar cane until 1 i 5 1 , a century after all the West Indies had iit,gun to raise it. T h e U. S. sugar industry grew rapidly. Iniprovrtl production techniques were developed continuuudy. I n 1812, Dcrosne developed boneblack. Howard invented the vucuuni pan in 1824 and Rillieux the multiple-cffect evaporator
otlier In rapid succesion as more intensive studv n as devoted to sugar mnriufactuie .ifter XIargrai found in l i 4 i t h a t beets coritaincd 6 % s u g ~ r , it, \\-as only 22 years until Xchard establislied in Aust,ria thc world’s firFt, heet sugar factory. Because of t h e c~oniplicatiiig preseriw 0 1 rionsugura in the juice, sugar vas origiii:tllj. much mort> tlificult t o ohtain from beets than froin sugar riiiie. This li,ri to c~lalioratc-.study of heet sugar clieiniatry. 13)- 1900, s u g : ~ r lxets a.cre supplying half of t,he world’s sugar. In t u r n , the c:~ne sugar ~ ~ r o d u c e were rs encouraged t o intensify their own scientific s t u d i e ~ Tvith , the result t h a t by now cane sugar anrounts to tn.o thirds of the world’s supply. .4gninst this hackground of a. highly developed anti espanding sugar technology, the . ~ I I : R I C A S CHb;mc.u. SOCIETY was founded in 1876. This was just 8 years liefore Einil Fischer began publishing the work whic~h was t o have such a tremendous effect upoii tlie suhaet~iieiittli~v(~1opnient of sugar chemistry and technology all over the world. Several prominent w g x r clieniists, including Arno Behr, H. 1:. Siese, and Paul C:imnnjor, were among the group whicli ynthercd in A-ew Torl; City in 1876 t o form the AMERICANCHEMIC-IT. SOCIETY. Chemists of the sugar industry were staunch supporters of the Societ>- from the very start. Most of these nien did not publish their research findings, and one of their ferv coiit:irts 13-ith scienti-ts other than their irnniediate associntes n - a i through the Society. A most, important development in t h e industrial field was the production of sweetening materials from sources ot’her than sugar rane. 1Iany of the men who received their training in the cane sugar industry laid the groundwork for the beet sugar and tiestrow industrie.s. T h e rhemistry of starch hydrolyzates n-as greatly accelerated a t approsiniately the time the sugar division was founded in 1921. T h e development, of a successful process far making refined
Corer of Scientific American in 1879 showed ceritrzfuge.5. borie black kilns. nnd u x i i u r n pans i n sugar refinery
Cantor, Vir. D.hmerican Horne, Sassau Sugar Club, Princeton, co., Philadelphia, 7.J. Pa, R . W. Liggett, American Sugar R e h i n g Co., Philadelphia, P a .
s, 804
dextrose from cornstarch \vas reported a t various meetings of the eugar division in its early years. Improvements in technology as n-ell as fundamental researches are always important parts of the division’s programs. As with so many other advances, the dextrose development grew from the application of fundamental cheniistry to the technology of an established industry. T h e early production of dextrose by wood saccharification mas based on fundamental scientific research originally conducted in the 19th century. During World War 11, this reaction was recoinniended as a source of alcohol and as insurance against possible grain shortages during times of emergency. I t may well be that the greatly expanded use of alcohol in the synthetic rubber program will bring about the largc scale utilization of such carbohydrate values. Several reports on this subject were prewiit.ed in a symposium on wood sugars before a joint session of tlic Divisions of Sugar Chemistry and Cellulose Chemistry in S c ~ wYork in 1944. (hie of the latest developnients in the milk processing field has been the commercial recovery of lactose from milk byproducts. iiside from its general use in foods, lactose is of value i n t,lie production of antibiotics, because it is fermented coniparatively s l o ~ l yby most microorganisms, particularly the Penicillia. T h e notable work of C. s. Hudson on milk sugar rebulted in his receiving the Borden Award in 1941 a t the sugar division’s St. Louis meeting.
I n 1810, sailing vessels laden Eith s u g a i anchored n f o r Haremeyers and Elder’s rejineiy, B r o o k l y n , K . Y .
MODERN TECHNOLOGY
The sugar industry’s equipment for such unit operations as crystallization, drying, conveying, transit, and storage has in many cmes been adapted from designs used in other types of iiianufacture. I n line n-ith the general industrial trend totvard t h e use of liquid materials, the industry has developed liquid rugars and inverted sugar sirups. Distribution of these conimodities would not have I)een feasible before the advent of cniit inuous processes in tlie food industries and the improvement of refrigeration facilities for perishable foods. .It the other end of the procws, the mechanization of sugar cane and sug:tr beet fariiiing lias iu:irkedly affected the relative economic position of sugar produced in -4nierica as compared to sugar obtained from foreign sour(’es. Mechanical harvesters are noiv used to harvest approsimatelj- 50% of the nation’s sugar beets. Traditional methods of shipping and handling raw sugar in bags have been illallrnged by modern bulk handling niethods. l-pe of information through t,he various inedia 01 tlie . ~ S l E R I C A S ( 'ITE.IIICALS O C I ~has Z . been of irnmrtise aid t o the sugar iiiduatrj-. For some timc, niol;isser hw berii used directly as tor c8;ittle arid swine. In fact, 6.5 gallon,Qof mol food v:ilue equal t o it bushel uf corn. Duririg the fiscal year 1049, t,lie voluine of cane and becst nicilaiws utilized in livestock Etwis i i i e w b i L s t d al)out ;%yoover the previous year. I
