A Lab Tool for Sugar: The Optical Rotatory Dispersion of d-Glucose from Its Mutarotation Kinetics with a Home-Made Polarimeter
Abstract
A polarimeter constructed from off-the-shelf parts was used to measure the optical rotation of sugars as the central activity in a second-year online analytical chemistry laboratory course. Throughout the five-weeks of the course, students built the instrument and performed measurements of sugars at three different wavelengths. The kinetics for the mutarotation of glucose was measured, and its equilibrium constant was used to determine the optical rotatory dispersion of pure α- and β- d -glucose in solution, via linearization of Drude’s equation. This activity serves as a foundation of instrument construction and calibration, data analysis, and error propagation in optical measurements, while connecting concepts of introductory, organic, and physical chemistry in an experimental setting.
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Fructose rotates the polarization of linearly polarized light counterclockwise.
“Another is fructose, which rotates polarization counterclockwise [7].”
Sucrose rotates the polarization of linearly polarized light clockwise.
“One wellknown optically active substance is sucrose, which rotates the polarization clockwise”
The specific rotation values obtained for grocery store sugar and fructose were lower than those predicted by the Drude equation.
“The values obtained were lower than those predicted by the Drude equation [7, 20, 21] shown in Fig. 13.”
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- Authors
- Parra Cordova, A.
- Affiliations
- Tecnologico de Monterrey, Escuela de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Av. General Ramón Corona 2514, Zapopan, Jalisco 45138, Mexico
- Venue
- Journal of Chemical Education
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Published
- 2024-12-26
- Volume
- 102
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 296-303
- ISSN
- 0021-9584 (ISSN-L)
- 1938-1328
- OpenAlex
- W4405805962
- Cited by
- 2
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1
- FWCI
- 0.43
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Chemical Education (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Chemistry › Physical and Theoretical Chemistry › Various Chemistry Research Topics
- Physical Sciences › Chemistry › Spectroscopy › Molecular spectroscopy and chirality
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Media Technology › Experimental Learning in Engineering
- Keywords
- optical rotatory dispersion, D-glucose, optical rotation, equilibrium constants, error propagation, instrument calibration
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