Imperial Chemical Industries Limited

Peter J Somers

Sidney A Barker

Robin Ross Woodbury

Gary N Sheldrake

Andrew B Herbert

John A Meredith

Geoffrey Harry Stafford

A process for the separation of a compound comprising a 1,2-dihydroxycyclohexa-3,5-diene ring from a medium containing it in which the compound reacts with a phenylboronate ion to form a phenylboronate ester which is insoluble in the medium. Novel phenylboronate esters formed during the separation process are also claimed.

Separation of 1,2-dihydroxycyclohexa-3,5-diene compounds

A process for the modification, solubilization and/or hydrolysis of a glycosidically linked carbohydrate having reducing groups using a mixture comprising water, an inorganic acid and a halide of lithium, magnesium or calcium. The process is particularly useful for converting cellulose (derived for example from waste-paper, wood or sawdust) or starch to glucose. When cellulose is the starting material the preferred halide is a lithium halide. When starch is the starting material a magnesium halide is preferred.

Solubilization and hydrolysis of carbohydrates

A process for the conversion of an aldose, or a substituted aldose, to a ketose, or a substituted ketose, in an aqueous reaction mixture containing a halide of a metal from Group II of the Periodic Table at a concentration in the range 0.5 molar to saturation. The process is particularly suitable for converting glucose into fructose. The preferred metal halide is calcium chloride.

Process for effecting aldose to ketose conversion

A process for the treatment of a mixture comprising one or more sugars and oxyanions to separate a sugar or a sugar mixture therefrom wherein the ion-containing mixture is treated with an ion-exchange resin. The process may comprise treatment of the ion-containing mixture with a cationic exchange resin having thereon monovalent counterions or a mixture of divalent counterions and hydrogen ions or with first a cationic exchange resin having thereon hydrogen ions and then second with an anionic exchange resin having thereon monovalent or divalent counterions. The process is very useful in the production of fructose-containing syrups.

Separation of sugars from mixtures

A process for converting aldoses or derivatives thereof into ketoses or derivatives thereof which takes place in the presence of oxyanions or mixed complex oxyanions of germanium or tin which form stronger complexes with the ketoses or derivatives thereof than with the aldoses or derivatives thereof. Using the process the equilibrium position in the aldose-ketose reaction is shifted towards higher proportions of ketose. The process is very applicable to the conversion of glucose to fructose particularly when this conversion takes place enzymatically in the presence of glucose isomerase.

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Birmingham, United Kingdom

Peter J Somers