In this article we explain everything you need to know about glucose. Glucose is one of the saccharides and is taught in chemistry.
What is glucose?
Many of you may not have heard the word, but already know what it means. Glucose is the chemical term for grape sugar. It is an important source of energy that we consume every day. Because dextrose is contained in bread, pasta and rice, for example, but also in fruit. Glucose is therefore a naturally occurring carbohydrate and represents the main source of energy for living beings. In an abbreviated form, glucose can also be found as Glc.
How is glucose composed?
Glucose belongs to the group of simple sugars. The technical term for this is monosaccharides.
Properties of Glucose
- The physical state of glucose is solid. The state of aggregation only describes the form in which a substance is found.
- The so-called melting point, i.e. the temperature at which glucose changes from a solid state to a liquid, is 146 degrees Celsius.
- In addition, the glucose can be dissolved very well in water. 20 degrees Celsius are enough for it to dissolve in water.
chemical composition
The molecular formula of glucose is: C6H12O6
It shows the chemical composition of glucose. This formula can also be represented as a graph. If you draw the molecular formula, the composition looks like this:
The circled part is the feature for an aldehyde. It is also said that glucose has an aldehyde group. An aldehyde is just a chemical compound that contains a carbonyl group. This group is circled in red in the image.
spelling of glucose
There is a rule that simplifies drawing so that you don’t have to sketch the molecular formula diagonally from left to right. In the so-called Fischer projection, the atom with the most highly oxidized group is written on top.
The remaining carbon atoms (the remaining 5 out of the 6) are then attached down a chain. But you can also first write down all the carbon atoms in a chain and then add the remaining connections to the top atom. Each carbon atom can form up to four bonds.
Finally, the OH groups have to be attached to the carbon chain. However, you cannot simply attach this anywhere, otherwise you could accidentally display a different material. To make things easier for you, there is a motto: Ta Tu Ta Ta, like the fire department. That probably sounds funny at first. The Ta means you write the atom to the right. The tu means that you write the atom to the left. Very simple, isn’t it?But beware! This rule only applies to glucose.
Since a carbon atom, as mentioned, can form up to four bonds, you can now fill in the vacancies with the remaining H’s.
If on the fifth carbon atom (counting from top to bottom) the OH group is written to the left, it is an L-sugar. In our case, however, the OH group is written to the right. Therefore a so-called D-sugar. The D is an abbreviation for the Latin word dexter. Translated into German means dexter «to the right». D-glucose occurs exclusively in nature. L-glucose, on the other hand, can only be produced synthetically, i.e. chemically.
This notation is also called chain form. Don’t be confused if you find another spelling. The chain form is just one of the possible spellings.
Interesting facts about glucose
glucose for living beings
As already mentioned, glucose is the main source of energy for living things. After glucose is absorbed, it is stored in our body. Not forever, of course, but until we need the energy. Then the stored glucose is released and broken down again. The stored form is also called polymeric glucan, in animals it is called glycogen and in plants glucose is stored in the form of starch. In plants, glucose is a component of cellulose, which is the main component of cell walls. Now you might be wondering how a plant can absorb glucose. After all, a plant cannot eat. It doesn’t even need that, because a plant produces glucose itself. As you may have heard, plants use photosynthesis to grow. You can think of sunlight as a source of energy. How, for example, your battery is the energy source for your cell phone. However, absorbing sunlight alone is not enough. In combination with water and carbon dioxide, the plant is able to produce its own glucose through photosynthesis.
glucose in industry
Glucose is also very important in medicine. There it is used in infusion solutions. But it is not only used there. But also in the industrial processing of food. Glucose is added to a lot more foods than you might think. The main use of glucose is to sweeten foods. Like soft drinks, for example. But glucose is also needed for the production of alcoholic beverages such as wine. This favors the fermentation process of the grapes, so that ethanol (alcohol) can be produced. Glucose is not only suitable for sweetening, but can also be used to produce acetic acid.
Glucose – the most important things at a glance!
- The molecular formula of glucose is: C6H12O6
- The atom with the most highly oxidized group is at the top
- All other carbon atoms (C) in a chain are attached downwards
- The OH groups according to the scheme ta (to the right) door (Left) ta (to the right) ta (right) add
- Fill in the empty spaces with the remaining H’s
- Finally, count again whether you wrote down the correct number of atoms.