Chlorination of Carbohydrates and Carbohydrate Derivatives

Disclosed is a method for chlorinating a carbohydrate or a derivative thereof to produce a polychlorinated carbohydrate or a derivative thereof, such as sucralose, the method involves (i) reacting the carbohydrate or derivative thereof with a chlorinating agent to obtain a reaction mixture comprising said polychlorinated carbohydrate or derivative thereof and at least one under-chlorinated carbohydrate or derivative thereof, (ii) returning the at least one under-chlorinated carbohydrate or derivative thereof to a chlorinating step and further chlorinating the at least one under-chlorinated carbohydrate or derivative thereof to obtain the desired polychlorinated carbohydrate or derivative thereof; and (iii) optionally repeating steps (i) and (ii) "n" times where n>=1. The polychlorinated carbohydrate or a derivative thereof is obtained in high yields.