Peter Rein
In 1887, a group of sugarcane growers known as the Louisiana Planters Association set up a research facility in Audubon Park in New Orleans so they could learn more about the granulation process. This was the beginning of the Audubon Sugar Institute. C.W. Stubbs, a professor of agriculture, became the first director of the station. A classroom building in the LSU Quadrangle is named in his honor.
In 1890, a mill was started at the Audubon station, and, in 1891, the Audubon Sugar School was established and the first sugar engineering course was offered. The course grew into a five-year program, and a research component was added. In 1916, the school’s director, Charles Coates, a professor of chemistry, published an article titled “A Twenty Five Year Experiment in Chemical Engineering Education: The Audubon Sugar School.” Another building in the LSU Quadrangle is named for Coates.
In 1925, the school was transferred to the Baton Rouge campus, and a sugar factory was built. This factory had a crushing capacity of 15 tons of cane per hour, or 360 tons per day, and crushed cane continuously during the Louisiana sugar season. In the early days cane fields bordered the edge of the campus where the factory was located. The raw sugar product and the byproducts, molasses and bagasse, were shipped to commercial customers. Generations of sugar technologists trained at this facility, and LSU provided the leaders for the sugar industries around the world.
After about 40 years of operation, the Audubon factory ceased grinding cane on a continuous basis. The milling tandem remains, but most of the factory equipment was removed. The institute now houses a wide variety of processing equipment in the factory building, with research laboratories on the second and third floors. The ground floor area is extensive, with pilot plant equipment to simulate all of the operations of a sugar mill or an alcohol plant.
Succeeding Coates, the respective directors through 1976 were Paul M. Horton, Arthur G. Keller and John J. Seip. In 1977, the school, which had been an integral part of the Department of Chemical Engineering, became an independent department, with J.A. Polack, professor of chemical engineering, as director. The name was changed to Audubon Sugar Institute. In 1986, the institute was transferred to the LSU Agricultural Center. Willem H. Kampen, associate professor, followed F.A. Martin, professor of agronomy, as head of Audubon Sugar Institute. In July 2000, Peter Rein, formerly technical director of Tongaat-Hulett Sugar in South Africa, took over as professor and head.
The Audubon Sugar Institute has a long history and a proud tradition and has educated many sugar technologists and sugar engineers. With the re-introduction of formal courses in sugar processing and sugar engineering, the Audubon Sugar Institute will return to its previous status as a provider of university-approved training. This once more puts the institute in a unique position as a center of excellence for teaching, research and extension. It is ideally located in the Louisiana sugar industry and poised to regain its former stature.
(This article appeared in the fall 2001 issue of Louisiana Agriculture.) |