Reducing Sugar Essay

Reducing sugar is the classification under the group of carbohydrates that acts as a major source of energy for most organisms. The presence of reducing sugar can be detected due to its reducing properties as it contains free carbonyl group that capable to donate electron and undergoes oxidation in a reaction. Examples of reducing sugars include glucose, fructose, lactose and arabinose.

In this experiment, the reducing sugar present in sample is oxidised using a solution contained Cu (II) ion which in the process is reduced to Cu(I) ions. In the second step the Cu(I) ions are then oxidised back to Cu(II) using a colourless hetero-polymolybdate complex that called arsenomolybdate reagent, which in the process will reduced to give the characteristic

Beyond its sweetening properties, sugar also acts as a natural preservative as reduced sugar concentration in a food product may shorten its shelf life and affect the quality of food product. The factor that can be used to explain shorten shelf life is water activity can be high when reduced amount of sugar present that may favour microorganisms to grow. Sugar which is a hydrophilic molecule can bind with water and reduced the amount of free water that will result in lower water activity. So, the beverages produce should be control in an intermediate level that contain enough amount of sugar that can delay its storage time but not too high since high sugar content may result in many diseases. Somogyi-Nelson method is widely used method to determine the reducing sugar content in sample due to this method is simple to perform and the material needed is readily available. Besides, Somogyi-Nelson method offers higher sensitivity and more accurate result than other method such as enzyamatic method that give significantly higher values of reducing sugars than the actual number of hemiacetals reducing groups (Gusakov and others