Permeation of Saccharides through Supported Ionic Liquid Membranes Containing Calixarenes as Carriers

Supported ionic liquid membranes containing calixarenes as carriers have been developed for saccharide separation. We examined the liquid membrane separation of saccharides using a quaternary ammonium salt Aliquat 336 as the ionic liquid and calix[x]arenes (x=4, 6, 8) as the carriers. In the permeation experiments, we observed high facilitated transport for glucose permeation with calix[4,6]arenes and for fructose, arabinose and ribose permeations with calix[8]arene. From permeation experiments using various derivatives of saccharides, we found that the calix[4,6]arenes interact with the OH-1,2 and 3 units and that calix[8]arene interacts with cis-3,4-diols units of the saccharides. Calixarenes, which have different numbers of phenol units, are concluded to be effective carriers for saccharides permeation.