Sugar Beet

Sugar beet is the raw material to produce white sugar in beet sugar factories. The leafs are separated from the root in order to extract the sugar contained in beet root.

Plant cells in beet root consists of:

• Cell wall
• Protoplasm - is the cell membrane taht is nonpermeable to sucrose and nonsucrose substances but semi permeable to water.
• Vacuole - contains sucrose and non sucrose substances

Sugar beet composition (example Asadi M.):

• Water -                 75 %
• Dry substances - 25% 
  • Beet juice  - 20.0 %
    • Sucrose -           17.5 %
    • Non.sucrose  -  2.5 %
      • Amino compounds -          1.1 %
      • Non-amino compounds - 0.9 %(1)
      • Mineral -                              0.3 %
      • Others -                                 0.2 %             
  • Beet marc -         5.0 %
  • Pectin -                2.4%
  • Cellulose -           1.2 %
  • Hemicellulose - 1.1 %
  • Protein -              0.1 %
  • Saponin -             0.1 %
  • Minerals -            0.1 %

Bibliography

Mosen Asadi, Beet - Sugar Handbook, 2007, John Willey & Sons, Inc.

(1) - Rafinose - 0.2 - 0.5 % ; Glucose and Fructose - 0.05 - 0.100 % and others.