Patent ID: 8921541

Claim:
A process for separating and recovering at least one monosaccharide sugar from a solution containing said at least one monosaccharide sugar, comprising: (i) nanofiltering the solution to obtain a nanofiltration permeate and a nanofiltration retentate, whereby said at least one monosaccharide sugar is enriched in the nanofiltration permeate, and (ii) collecting the nanofiltration permeate in more than one fraction to obtain more than one permeate fraction where the relative difference between the contents of said at least one monosaccharide sugar in one collected nanofiltration permeate fraction, relative to the content of said at least one monosaccharide sugar in another collected permeate fraction, is more than 10%, on the dry solids (DS) basis, and (iii) recovering said at least one monosaccharide sugar from at least one of the collected nanofiltration permeate fractions by crystallization and subjecting at least one of the other collected nanofiltration permeate fractions to a precipitation crystallization, chromatographic fractionation or recycling to the nanofiltration.