(370d) Correlation and Prediction of Adsorption of Sugars/Oligosaccharides On Solid Phase Resins by Use of GE-Models

Nutraceuticals are a combination of nutrition and pharmaceutical compounds referring to extracts of foods claimed to have a medicinal effect on human health. Probiotics are viable microbial dietary supplements that influence the host and have a beneficial affect in the gastro-intestinal tract. Prebiotics are nondigestible food ingredients that benefit the host organism by stimulating the growth or activity of one or limited number of bacteria in the colon. Galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS) show potential applications in functional foods. In the recent past a great deal of attention is being given to these fields of pro and prebiotics as functional foods by the food and health industry due to the great economic potential they possess.

 

The enrichment of these oligosaccharides is still a challenge that needs to be addressed in a more concrete fashion by the food and bioprocess industry. One reason being their close proximity of physicochemical and thermodynamic properties. Understanding these properties will help in the design of new and robust processes for their separation. Chromatography in fixed bed, both in batch and continuous modes is a separation technique, which has widely been used in the concentration, separation and purification of bioproducts, such as sugars and proteins [1], and might apply in this field as well.

In this work high-through put experimentation (HTS) was used to measure the distribution of several sugars and oligosaccharides between several stationary phases and mobile phases. Stationary phases selected were commercially available resins like Dowex 99, Amberilite, Purolite etc loaded with metals like Na⁺, Ca²⁺, K⁺. Solutes used were monosugars like glucose, arabinose, galactose and oligosaccharides like raffinose etc. Activity coefficients were measured and modeled. Ratios of activity coefficients in the solid and mobile phases of simple sugars were found from the fixed bed experiments and extended to oligosaccharides. Finally these experimental results were compared against A-UNIFAC g^E model predictions taking associations and dissociations in sugar/oligosaccharide solutions into account.

 

 

References:

[1] Nfor BK et al.Chem. Technol.Biotechnol. 2008, 83, 124.