Purification of xylooligosaccharides from bamboo with non-organic solvent to prepare food grade functional sugars

Abstract Food grade xylooligosaccharides (XOS) have a high application value, but most of the reported purification methods of XOS use organic solvents, which has significant problems such as large amount of solvent, residual solvent, and difficulty in solvent recovery. In addition, although there are many reported methods of separation and purification, quantitative analysis is lacking for each specific treatment step, such as sugar loss rate, decolorization rate, protein removal rate, and desalination rate. Therefore, purification of XOS from bamboo with non-organic solvent to prepare food grade functional sugars was presented by this study. What’s more, quantitative analysis and optimization was made for each step of separation, which was of great significance for guiding the actual production. Overall, through activated carbon adsorption, ion exchange and membrane filtration comprehensive treatments, food grade XOS were obtained from bamboo with 7.5% yield, a purity of 92.3%, and a total sugar proportion as high as 98.9%.