will be explained more fully below the sugar stream 33 which preferably contains at least 15 sugar and not more than 3 acid can then be fermented if desired the purity of the sugar can be calculated as a percentage of the nonaqueous components of the sugar stream thus any sugar purity of above 83 3 100 u00d7 15 18 is suitable for fermentation the inclusion of acid concentration as high as 3 in the sugar stream does not cause problems for further processing however loss of significant proportions of sugar with the acid upon separation can decrease the overall economy of the process in an exemplary ideal separation process 100 grams of water would be used to elute a 100 gram sample solution containing 30 grams of acid 15 grams of sugar and 55 grams of water from a separation column in the case of perfect separation the sugar stream would contain 15 grams of sugar and 85 grams of water this would leave 30 grams of acid and 70 grams 100 55 85 of water for recovery of acid in the same concentration 30 as the original solution however a typical elution for the 100 gram sample solution referred to above would require.