Determination of the concentration of a highly reactive intermediate of saccharides utilizing the reaction kinetics of the blue bottle reaction
摘要
In the present study we investigated fructose, glucose, and mannose in sodium hydroxide solution. Saccharides in an alkaline solution establish a highly reactive enediolate anion of low concentration. We propose that an internal geometric rearrangement of the sugar required to establish the enediolate is responsible for different concentrations of the reactive anion depending on the sugar. We determined the free energy for the rearrangement and the concentration of the enediolate. We find that for the sugars studied there is a correlation between the magnitude of internal rotation required for hydrogen abstraction and the value of the free energy.