Adsorption of monosaccharides, disaccharides, and maltooligosaccharides on activated carbon for separation of maltopentaose

To study separation of maltopentaose from maltooligosaccharide mixtures, we investigated the adsorption equilibrium and kinetics of monosaccharides (fructose, galactose, and glucose), disaccharides (sucrose, maltose, and lactose), and maltooligosaccharides (maltotriose, maltotetraose, and maltopentaose) on activated carbon. The adsorption amount of maltose consisting of two glucosidic units was the highest among the nine adsorbates studied. It was also found that the different chemical structure of disaccharides with the same molecular weight highly affected the adsorption amount compared to that of monosaccharides. A simple but practical dynamic model was proposed, based on both the ideal adsorbed solution theory (IAST) for multicomponent equilibria and the surface diffusion model for intraparticle mass transport. In spite of its simplicity, the proposed dynamic model successfully simulated the adsorption breakthrough curves up to ternary mixtures.