Home > Community > What is the reaction mechanism in the Fehlings test using maltose as the reducing sugar?
Upvote

19

Downvote
+ Chemical reactions
+ Sugar
+ Sucrose
+ Biochemistry
+ Chemistry
+ Maltose
+ Mechanisms
Posted by
Future Worlds

What is the reaction mechanism in the Fehlings test using maltose as the reducing sugar?

Dapid Candra  Follow

Why is lactose a reducing sugar but not sucrose?

In order to be a reducing sugar, the sugar needs a free aldehyde or ketone group.

All the monosaccharides, including glucose and fructose, have this property, as do some of the di- and polysaccharides, such as lactose and maltose. In sucrose, however, the carbon elements of the aldehyde groups are bonded in what’s called a glycosidic bond so that sucrose cannot form an open- chain structure with an available aldehyde group.

Further details of reducing sugars can be found in this Wikipedia article.

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote
Daniel Hobbs  Follow

reference: Reducing sugar - Wikipedia

“Disaccharides are formed from two monosaccharides and can be classified as either reducing or nonreducing. Nonreducing disaccharides like sucrose and trehalose have glycosidic bonds between their anomeric carbons and thus cannot convert to an open-chain form with an aldehyde group; they are stuck in the cyclic form. Reducing disaccharides like lactose and maltose have only one of their two anomeric carbons involved in the glycosidic bond, meaning that they can convert to an open-chain form with an aldehyde group.”

More

Upvote

VOTE

Downvote