The separation of hydrophilic substances, like sugars, from aqueous solutions is still a huge challenge. Within this work the extraction of sugars with micellar systems was performed by means of the micellar enhanced ultrafiltration (MEUF) and compared to the state of the art extraction based on organic solvents. Phenylboronic acid was used as carrier to solubilize sugars (arabinose, cellobiose, glucose, and sucrose) in different kind of micelles (formed by the cationic surfactant CTAB and the non-ionic/cationic surfactant mixture Triton X-100 (TM)/Aliquat 336 (TM)). It was shown that the partition coefficients of the sugars in micellar systems are higher than those achieved with organic solvents, especially using the cationic surfactant. Monosaccharides were recovered efficiently and with a high selectivity (up to 64% for the monosaccharides compared to 17% for the disaccharides). It was shown, that the recovery can be enhanced with increasing cationic surfactant content. Furthermore the equilibration time can be reduced significantly compared to the extraction with organic solvents. Thus, micellar enhanced ultrafiltration is a promising method for the recovery of sugars and other hydrophilic components from aqueous streams without any use of organic solvents. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.