Maltitol, a low calorie preservative sweetener, is gained from a hydrogen addition of maltose.

As a method for obtaining this maltitol at a high purity, generally, syrup which contains maltitol of medium concentration (50-80%) is dissolved in water and then separated using either the fixed-bed mode or simulated moving bed mode of chromatographic separation.

However, separating maltitol of high purity (95% or above) turned out to be very advantageous because of the possibility of the production of product groups of high additional value.

Nevertheless, in cases where either the original fixed-bed mode or the general simulated moving-bed mode of chromatographic separation is used, the separation of maltotritol and maltitol was not easy. In particular, even when we divide broadly into the three components maltitol, monosaccharides, and polysaccharides, it was economically and practically with respect to concentration and recovery rates, very difficult to remove the specific component, maltitol, from feed containing all three of these components, even when devices which are constructed for the high efficiency industrial separation recovery are used.

Here is an example of the realization of production of a high value added product group though the recovery of high purity (93% or above) maltitol using the New JO Chromatographic Separation System.

The results are presented of the separation of a sugar liquid feed of 81% concentration of maltitol using the New JO Chromatographic Separation System.

Table1 Feed Composition

Test Equipment: Inside Diameter of Column 108.3 [mm] * Packing-bed Height: 1600 [mm] * 10 columns

Total Volume of Adsorbent: 147.4 [l]

Adsorbent: Strong Acid Cation-Exchange Resin Ca Form

Desorbent: Water

Temperature of Feed Mixture: 80℃

Relative strength of absorption affinity of each of the components with the adsorbent is as follows: monosaccharides > maltitol > polysaccharides. Liquids abundant in polysaccharides, maltitol, and monosaccharides respectively were separated.

Table2 Separation Results: Maltitol fraction and its recovery rate 86.2 [%]

The ability to produce high concentration maltitol with high recovery rates was verified.

ORGANO: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No.132586 (1997)