Kanpur: Challenge of meeting requirement of petrol, diesel and other petroleum products in the wake of war in West Asia is being feared to hit Indian sugar industry, which uses sizeable quantities of sulphur as clarifying agent. Out of 540 operational sugar factories, almost 85% employ sulphitation process, and the current annual demand is estimated to be 2 lakh tonnes.National Sugar Institute former director, Prof Narendra Mohan, has been invited to make a presentation about innovative technologies, including those required for producing sulphur-less sugar and eliminating use of sulphur in processing, during plenary session of the International Conference, SugarNxt 2026, in New Delhi on Apr 7 and 8.Mohan said, “India imports large quantities of sulphur to meet the demands of various industries, including sugar industry. Price of sulphur, recovered during desulphurisation of crude oil and natural gas, began rising in Nov over rising cost and supply constraints in India and China, and now in the war scenario, prices may escalate further. This will create major issues in operation of sugar factories, so it is time to think again about production of sulphur-less sugar, which is also healthier and environment-friendly.” Sulphitation sugar is not the preferred choice of institutional buyers as it is not suited for production of pharmaceutical sugar, beverages, bakery and confectionary. Besides, process equipment gets corroded, causing higher downtime and replacement costs.”“While there are certain proven technologies to produce such sugars, recent experiments carried out with some newer technologies allow production of sulphur-less sugars at cost comparable with sugars by double sulphitation process.
