ProKris Technologies is a joint venture between IPSS Engineering and CleanTechInnovations. In this joint venture the ProKris technology will be scaled up and commercialized. For this a pilot plant is being built in the IPSS Technohal which is situated at the Plus Ultra building on Wageningen University campus.
ProKris is an innovative new process to extract sugar from sugar-containing feedstock, which is much more efficient than traditional processes, resulting in significantly lower sugar production costs. Unique about this new process is that the costs are lowered to a level enabling decentralized sugar production. This eliminates the need to transport sugar beets over long distances. Furthermore, the process is suitable for a very broad range of feedstock such as sugar beets, sugar cane and waste fruit or vegetables. Also more non-traditional feedstock such as black liquor and dairy waste can be used to produce sugars.
Besides the 50% energy reduction in the sugar refining process, the decreased need of transportation also adds to energy savings: about 90% less transport will be needed due to on-sight processing, causing not only a reduced distance travelled to the refinery but also a reduction in storage steps. Cutting the step of sugar beet to storage and then from storage to refinery will increase overall logistic efficiency.
I.It is a simple and very energy-efficient process, which
II.Produces same sugar quality at (much) lower cost and thus
III.Creates a competitive small-scale solution to extract sugar from sugar beets or sugar-containing by-products.