Adsorptive separation of saccharides and polyols over materials functionalized with boronate groups

Abstract

Saccharides and polyols play key roles in emerging biomass-based value chains, though recovery of these compounds from product streams remains challenging. This Review addresses the application of materials bearing boronate groups for separation and recovery of saccharides and polyols via affinity adsorption processes. First, the representative, industrially important product mixtures are considered, along with the design of separation processes exploiting the affinity adsorption. Thereafter, the structure-performance correlations are critically discussed for gel-type functionalized polymers, macroporous resins, molecularly imprinted polymers, and materials bearing grafted phenylboronate moieties and grafted polymer brushes. Finally, the separation processes based on functional materials bearing boronate groups are compared with the state-of-the-art chromatographic separation over Ca²⁺ ion-exchange resins. This analysis aims at identifying guidelines for rational material synthesis and knowledge-driven process design for novel economically viable and environmentally benign separation processes.