Abstract: Betaine is recovered from natural sources such as beet molasses, rest molasses and vinasse by diluting the molasses to 25-50% solids, introducing the molasses to the top of a chromatographic column containing a salt of a polystyrene sulfonate cation exchange resin cross-coupled with from about 2 to about 12 weight percent of divinylbenzene, eluting with water and collecting a fraction of betaine from the downstream side of the resin. When successive feeds with predetermined intervals are made, the feeds may be partly overlapped. The betaine from the preceding feed is then eluted by the dilute molasses from the following feed. The betaine fraction is evaporated under vacuum and the betaine crystallized as anhydrous crystals or as betaine monohydrate.

Abstract: A method for preparing pharmaceutical grade xylitol from an aqueous solution containing mixtures of polyols including xylitol which comprises subjecting the solution to a crude crystallization and recrystallization of xylitol followed by the recovery of residual xylitol from the mother liquor by fractionating the solution using at least two columns of ion-exchange resin in two different metal forms.