Sucrose is dextrorotatory, but its hydrolysis produces dextrorotatory glucose and laevorotatory fructose. The mixture, known as invert sugar, is laevorotatory due to fructose’s higher laevorotation.
Explain the change in optical rotation during the hydrolysis of sucrose and the resulting product.
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The hydrolysis of sucrose involves breaking the glycosidic linkage between glucose and fructose, leading to the formation of equimolar amounts of these monosaccharides. Sucrose itself is optically inactive, but both glucose and fructose are optically active. The change in optical rotation occurs because the optical activities of glucose and fructose differ. The resulting mixture, called invert sugar, has a specific rotation that is opposite in direction to the original sucrose. This change is due to the different optical rotations of glucose and fructose, reflecting their distinct three-dimensional arrangements of atoms.