Methods of recovering a triarylmethyl halide from a sucrose derivatization process include the steps of (a) forming a mixture including 1) a triarylmethylated sucrose derivative including at least one triarylmethyl substituent and at least one acyl substituent on the sucralose, 2) triarylmethylated sucrose ester byproducts, and 3) an amine; (b) separating from the output of step (a) i) the triarylmethylated sucrose derivative, and ii) a mixture including the triarylmethylated sucrose ester byproducts and the amine; (c) removing the amine from the mixture of step (b) ii); (d) contacting the product of step (c) with hydrogen halide to cleave triarylmethyl groups and thereby form a crude triarylmethyl halide component; (e) contacting the crude triarylmethyl halide component with hydrogen halide to form a purified triarylmethyl halide component; and (f) recovering the triarylmethyl halide from the output of step (e).
