Abstract

CARBOHYDRATE ANALYSIS AND KINETICS

Author(s): IMRANA SIDDIQUI

As products of natural origin, carbohydrates are among the most abundant, and are widely distributed in both the plant and animal kingdoms. We eat them directly in such foods as bread, potatoes, corn and peas and indirectly in meat, eggs and fats from animals which feed on carbohydrates in the form of grains and grasses. Cotton and linen, the traditional clothing fabrics, are both almost pure carbohydrates. Wood consists largely of cellulose and hence a good portion of houses in which we live, as well as much of our furniture, is constructed of carbohydrates. The paper is mostly carbohydrate. Fructose is the sweetest of all the sugars. It occurs widely and abundantly in nature. Fructose has been determined by various authors using various techniques like Liquid Chromatography, HPLC, Fused Silica Gas Chromatography, Mass Spectroscopy, High Performance Union Exchange Chromatography with Pulse Amperometry, Reversed Phase HPLC etc. The author has used polarographic methods of analysis for the analysis of fructose in different samples. In the present study Fructose has been determined polarographically in honey and in various fruits. Sugars such as the hexoses, give polarographic curve but the disaccharides such as sucrose and lactose, do not. Analytical use of reduction of fructose has been made in the study of inversion of sucrose.