Modelling of membrane cascades for the purification of oligosaccharides

Considering an initial purity of 84% for FOS and 40.4% for GOS, the model predicted a maximum attainable purity of 94.9% and 46.7% for FOS and GOS respectively. A minimum yield of 90% was used as constraint during the optimisation process, in which the physical limitations of the set up were also taken into account. This paper demonstrates that the trade-off situation between purity and yield can be overcome by using cascade configuration, leading to an efficient separation that cannot be achieved by single-stage membrane systems.