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Audubon Sugar Institute
3845 Highway 75
St. Gabriel, LA 70776

Phone: 225-642-0135

Fax: 225-642-8790

Office Hours: 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Monday-Friday

Benjamin Legendre, Ph.D.
Department Head/Denver T. Loupe/ASSCT Sugar Heritage Professor

e-mail
blegendre@agcenter.lsu.edu

Website:
LSUAgCenter.com/audubon

Academic Focus:
Offers undergraduate and graduate students programs
in sugar engineering in conjunction with other engineering degrees.

Research Focus:
Conducts research to improve sugar manufacturing towards a diversified sugar-processing industry using low-environmental impact technologies.

Extension Focus:
Conducts training sessions with factory managers and their staff on knowledge for reducing sugar losses in processing. Facilitates boiler operation compliance and conducts molasses and other special sample analyses.

Academic/Research/Extension Highlights

• Each year the Audubon Sugar Institute conducts a Factory Operations Seminar for representatives of the Louisiana sugar industry. Topics from these seminars not only offer projects to increase the efficiency in sugar processing but also include information on new technologies developed to add value to molasses, to directly produce white sugar at the mill and to produce value-added products from sugarcane biomass among others.
• Short courses at Audubon Sugar Institute are designed to increase knowledge of personnel at all levels in the sugar industry and are offered to coincide with the off-crop season. The courses range from a two-day class in separation technologies for engineers and sugar technologists to a four-day training for bench chemists. Courses in the technology of sugar production qualify for continuing professional development for registered professional engineers.
• In cooperation with the LSU College of Engineering, the Audubon Sugar Institute offers courses enabling engineering students to minor in Sugar Engineering. The courses are designed for students to gain a full understanding of sugar technology and sugar engineering while in the process of earning a bachelor’s or master’s degree in chemical, biological or mechanical engineering.
• The Audubon Sugar Institute conducts laboratory and pilot-scale research on potential alternative fuels ranging from producing ethanol from sugars and biomass at raw-sugar mills and using starch-based products to produce butanol to investigating the technical feasibility of the supplemental production of ethanol from algae. The technology closest to commercialization after biodiesel is the production of ethanol from sweet sorghum, sugarcane bagasse and energy cane using resources at existing sugar mills.

Significance of Programs

• Provide technological information and process support to the 11 sugar factories in Louisiana through annual factory operations seminars and mill visits during the grinding campaign and off-crop season.
• Improve mill efficiency to its maximum through continued research projects such as
• mill extraction tests
• bagasse boiler operation studies
• optimization of low-grade boiling procedures
• production and storage of very-high-purity and very-low-color sugar.
• survey of final molasses, syrup and juice
• Investigate an economically viable biorefinery concept at the sugar mill using multiple feedstock such as sugarcane bagasse, sweet sorghum, energy cane and algae to process green fuels and other biomaterials.

Audubon Sugar Institute Facts

• 5 faculty, 1 post-doc, 6 research associates and 8 graduate students.
• The institute has been very successful in securing grants from state and federal agencies and private industry.
• The Audubon Sugar Institute has a long history and tradition of educating many sugar technologists and sugar engineers for more than 100 years.
• In the reintroduction of formal courses in sugar processing and sugar engineering, the Audubon Sugar Institute is a provider of university-approved training.
• The Audubon Sugar Institute is a center of excellence for teaching, research and extension.
• The institute is ideally located near in the Louisiana sugar industry.

Future Plans
The Audubon Sugar Institute is looking to revitalize training and education in sugar technology that is world-class without neglecting research aimed at determining commercial feasibility of new processes and development of technologies suitable for local industries.

It also is seeking to reestablish its pilot facility as an ideal test bed to demonstrate the scalability of new technologies developed through research at the bench level. Novel uses for waste products from sugar processing is one example of such focused research that is geared to enable a diversified sugar-processing industry. The pilot facility will further enhance the short course and education program to attract, retain and develop world-class staff to serve the sugar processing industry with the ability to transfer new technology through demonstration and optimization.

Another significant plan is to address as many aspects of industrial development for new byproducts from Louisiana crops as possible, encompassing areas from handling and storage of feedstock to processing to optimization for biofuel specialty chemical production; and from product conceptualization through development to economic analysis and marketability.