In separation and purification of sugars, in this case FOS, the
interactions between eluent (ethanol), adsorbate (sugar) and
adsorbent (activated charcoal) are very important. Some workers
have demonstrated that activated charcoal influenced the separation
of mixtures rich in saccharides. Toshiaki et al. [17] produced
high purity maltose, and observed that adsorption depends on the
micropore diameter distributions of the granular activated charcoal.
In previous work, we studied different activated charcoal
particle size for the purification of FOS in a fixed bed column and
observed that with small particle size the saccharide mixture flow
rate decreased and hindered the separation [6]. The adsorption
capacity of activated charcoal depends on the total superficial area,
internal porous structure and the presence of functional groups on
the pore surface. While the chemical structure influences the
interaction with polar and nonpolar adsorbates, the adsorption
of such molecules will be enhanced if they and the carbon surface
carry opposite charges [18].