A Novel Chromatographic Production Scale Separation Process for L-Fucose

There is an increasing interest towards a special and very rare sugar, L-fucose, because of its functionalities, i.e., in the human body. There are only a few industrial production processes for L-fucose, and chromatographic separation of this valuable component from hemicellulose hydrolysates could be a feasible alternative. However, chromatographic separation of L-fucose with sufficient purity from other monosaccharides, especially deoxy sugars, has presented a problem in the state of the art. The aim of this work was to find a new process scale chromatographic purification method for L-fucose containing liquor. Of special interest was a process suitable for recovery of L-fucose from plant based biomass hydrolysate. This paper presents an industrial scale chromatographic separation method for the production of L-fucose. The use of a combination of strong and weak acid cation exchange resins increases L-fucose purity gradually, while the use of strong base anion exchange resin gives an excellent separation of L-fucose from other remaining sugar compounds.