Chromatographic automatic system with laser polarimetric detection technique for estimating real sucrose in sugarcane

The estimation of real sucrose concentration, its accumulation, and differentiation from the rest of sugarcane juice carbohydrates is still an unsolved problem in sugarcane industry. Different techniques and analytical sequences have been used persistently with an objective to evaluate different types of carbohydrates with an acceptable minimum of interference. This paper puts forward results obtained during the evaluation of sugarcane juices from 10 months old cultivar My 5514. The immaturity of stalks allowed to study sucrose accumulation levels in different stalk sections. Low pressure liquid chromatography in a continuous flow combined with laser polarimetric detection is an effective tool to evaluate the behaviour of each carbohydrate in juice cultivars. Besides, this combination makes it possible to exclude from sucrose estimation those optically active non-sucrose compounds having high and medium molecular mass which could alter its real value in sugarcane juice when traditional methods are used.