Study on Industrial Scale Chromatographic Separation Methods of Galactose from Biomass Hydrolysates

Abstract

Abstract Galactose is an aldohexose, which has commercial uses in the pharmaceutical and food industries. Since monomeric galactose is not a freely occurring compound, it must be produced from galactose‐containing hydrolysates. This paper reports the results of experimental studies of the chromatographic separation of galactose in aqueous solutions by ion exchange resins on an industrial scale. Until now, galactose has only been determined from various solutions by liquid chromatography (HPLC) on an analytical scale. Chromatographic separation of galactose from carbohydrate mixtures was studied with strong acid cation exchange resins in Na + , Ca 2+ forms and strong base anion exchange resin in SO 4 2– form. The feed solutions were hydrolysates from three possible galactose sources: lactose, gum arabic and hemicellulose in spent sulfite liquor. The main monosaccharide impurities in these raw materials were glucose, arabinose, and xylose. It was demonstrated that large scale liquid chromatography can be used effectively for galactose separation from complex carbohydrate mixtures such as plant hydrolysates as well as lactose hydrolysate.