GEA and Chemical Systems Technologies (CST), an India-based engineering company specialising in process solutions for the sugar industry, have entered into a strategic partnership to accelerate the global adoption of decanter centrifuges in sugar mud dewatering. By combining GEA’s decanter technology and global market access with CST’s deep process expertise, the collaboration aims to support sugar producers in upgrading existing operations and improving total cost of ownership.
With profitability and resource efficiency under increasing pressure, sugar recovery through decanter-based dewatering is becoming a critical lever for sugar mill performance. GEA decanters are well established across industrial separation applications, and their advantages in sugar mud dewatering have already been proven in the field. The partnership with CST is designed to accelerate this transition by combining proven technology with deep process expertise.
“For many sugar producers, improving yield alone is no longer enough; resource efficiency and operating costs are becoming equally critical. Decanter technology addresses exactly these challenges with measurable impact,” says Martin Neugebauer, Senior Director Business Line Renewables at GEA.
From conventional systems to more efficient processing
Sugar mill mud is produced during the clarification of sugar juice through lime milk treatment and subsequent sedimentation, typically in short retention time clarifiers (SRTC) or conventional clarifiers. Dewatering this mud is a standard step in sugar processing, and rotary vacuum drum filters (RVDF) have been the conventional technology of choice in mills around the world for decades. Belt presses are another established alternative. While both technologies are proven in the field, they share well-known limitations: high levels of water and steam consumption, dependency on filter aids, significant product losses, and labor-intensive operations that are difficult to automate and prone to variability.
GEA decanters offer a continuous, closed-process alternative that directly addresses these limitations, reducing operational complexity while improving resource efficiency. Following juice clarification, concentrated mud, which typically represents around 10–20 percent of the process flow, is fed directly to the decanter, where solids and centrate are continuously separated. The centrate is returned to the process, while the dewatered solids are discharged for disposal or further use
