Conclusions
These results concern the separation of FOS from a mixture of
sugars containing, sucrose, fructose, glucose and FOS, obtained
from an enzymatic synthesis of FOS from sucrose. From the
experiments with ethanol gradients as eluant, it was shown that
FOS was more efficiently separated from glucose at 408C, using
60 mL of ethanol at a concentration around 15%, leading to an
efficiency of separation of 2.42, and 91% FOS purity and a 63.3%
recovery from the same pool of sugars. From runs with step of
ethanol as eluant, it was found that decreasing the ethanol concentration
in the steps increased the efficiency of separation
between FOS and glucose, but with decreasing purity, since FOS
and sucrose showed almost the same residence time in the column.
The increase in bed height maintained the ES between FOS
and glucose and increased purity up to 94%. From the results of
this study, an activated charcoal fixed bed column, operated either
in gradient or step methods, was shown to be an effective means to
separate FOS from a mixture of sugars.