ICUMSA News n°71 – March 2013

Message from the President

Changes to ICUMSA Scientific Subjects and Referees

I am pleased to report that we have successfully reorganized the scientific subjects within ICUMSA and appointed Referees to each Subject. This change reflects the fact that some subjects had closed, other subjects required starting and rationalization was appropriate to allow focus where necessary.

The table below lists the old and new Subjects together with the new Referees.

New SubjectIncorporating
(Old Subject)
Referee
S1 Constitution and By-LawsPresident
S2 Method Format,
Collaborative Testing and Statistical Treatment of Data
Roger Wood
S3 Colour, Turbidity and Reflectance MeasurementChristiane Lakenbrink
S4 Physical MethodsS4 Density, Optical Rotation and Refractive IndexMathis Kuchejda
S5 Chemical MethodsS2 Oligosaccharides and Polysaccharides
S8/9 Chromatographic Techniques
S10 Enzymatic and Immunological Methods
S13 Reducing Sugars
S14 Ash
Maciej Wojtczak
S6 MicrobiologyS12 MicrobiologyMaritta Jacobs
S7 Indirect Methods and New TechnologiesS5 Dry Substance
S6 Indirect Methods of Analysis On-line /At-line techniques
Amélia Ferraz
S8 Sampling and Sample PreparationRoger Wood

ICUMSA General Subjects

There have also been changes made to the Referees in the General Subjects and the table below gives the current position here.

General SubjectPrevious RefereeCurrent Referee
GS1 Raw SugarAndrew HarrisonAndrew Harrison
GS2 White SugarKaren PardoeKaren Pardoe
S3 Specialty SugarsNiels AndersenNiels Andersen
GS4 MolassesGillian EgglestonNigel Jones
GS5 CaneDr RaoCamille Roussel
GS6 BeetDierk MartinDierk Martin
GS7 Cane ProcessingLaurent CorcodelGillian Eggleston
GS8 Beet ProcessingJean-Marc HuetVacancy
GS9 Plantation White SugarVasudha KeskaVasudha Keskar

There is currently a vacancy for a referee in GS8 and the Officers of ICUMSA are currently working on filling this.

Contact details for all the Referees can be found on the ICUMSA website in the members section and I would like to particularly wish the new Referees Amélia Ferraz, Camille Roussel and Nigel Jones good luck in their endeavours.

National Committee Members

I would also like to ask every National Committee to review the members of their Committee and provide the ICUMSA General Secretary with an up-todate list. The information required for each member is:-

a) Name

b) Organisation

c) Job title

d) Address

e) Phone

f) Fax

g) Email

h) If Associate Referee then which subject

This is extremely important in order to keep the website current and allows the Referees to contact their Associate Referees without delay.

Forthcoming Microbiology Meeting

The Microbiology Group will hold their next meeting on 26th June at Arlöv refinery, Sweden.

Topics will include the detection of TAB and Guaiacol-producing TAB, the detection of Osmotolerant Yeasts and Moulds and the detection of E.Coli/Coliforms. Experiences with SUPS Microbiology Samples will also be discussed.

General Subject 5 – Pol, Brix and Fibre in Cane

Currently, the ICUMSA method for the determination of pol, brix and fibre in cane uses a wet disintegrator (WD), the Lead Subacetate method having Official status (ICUMSA Method GS 5/7-1 (2011)) and the Aluminum Chloride method having Tentative status (ICUMSA Method GS 5/7-28).

Two other methods will be investigated:

Berding and Pollock method, based on the Tamimoto press method. This method, simple and quick, was first developed by BSES (Australia) for fibre determination for mill payment purposes and requires a hydraulic press and an oven-drying step of the press cake.

Holden method which requires both a WD and a press, has the advantage of formulating no hypothesis about “brix free water” unlike the official ICUMSA Method GS 5/7-1 (2011) or the Berding and Pollock method.

A collaborative study will be carried out to compare these new methods to the Official one. Any person that would be interested in the collaborative test can contact the GS5 Referee (Mrs Camille ROUSSEL, roussel@ercane.re).

Geoff Parkin

President, ICUMSA