Danisco Sweeteners Oy

Finnfeeds Finland Oy

Danisco A/s

Marianne Nyström

Heikki O Heikkila

Hannu A Paananen

Mirja Lindroos

Hannu Koivikko

Mika Mänttäri

Outi Puuppo

Heikki Heikkilä

Kaj-Erik Monten

Mika Manttäri

The invention relates to a separation process of fractionating a solution comprising betaine and sucrose by subjecting said solution to chromatographic fractionation and nanofiltration and recovering a fraction enriched in betaine and optionally a fraction enriched in sucrose. The solution to be fractionated in accordance with the present invention is typically a sugar beet-derived solution, for instance a molasses solution.

Process for recovering betaine

The invention relates to a process of separating compounds with a small molar mass from compounds having a molar mass less than 1.9 times that of the compounds with a small molar mass using nanofiltration. The compounds with a small molar mass have a typical molar mass less than 250 g/mol. In one embodiment of the invention, pentose sugars are separated from hexose sugars. The invention can be applied to the recovery of xylose from spent liquors and to the recovery of betaine from sugar beet pulp extracts, for example.

Separation process

The invention relates to a process of producing a xylose solution from a biomass hydrolysate by subjecting the biomass hydrolysate to nanofiltration and recovering as the nanofiltration permeate a solution enriched in xylose. The biomass hydrolysate used as starting material is typically a spent liquor obtained from a pulping process.

Recovery of xylose

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Lappeenranta, Finland

Marianne Nyström