The use of aluminium hydroxide in sugar analyses - An alternative coagulant to basic lead acetate

In most cases samples from sugar processing need to be purified before measuring polarization, and basic lead acetate (BLA)is commonly used as a coagulant for this purpose. Because of the high toxicity of lead compounds, alternatives have been sought and aluminium compounds, mainly aluminium sulphate, have been found to be the most satisfactory. The present work showed that aluminium hydroxide (ALH) is able to coagulate non-sugars in relatively high and moderate purity samples, but a mixture of BLA and ALH is more efficient in low purity samples. It was also found that using a quarter of the original quantity of BLA with an equal amount of ALH was very useful for both C massecuite and molasses.