ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF CARBOHYDRATES

(QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS)
Denise Caramoan, Christine Cerrero, Joshua Adrian Crisostomo, Joseph Cua, Coleen David
ABSTRACT
Carbohydrates are one of most important organic compounds found in living organisms
because it is a major source of energy. It is distributed among plants and animals and can even be
found in animal tissues one of which is the liver. The objective of this experiment, particularly
the quantitative test, is to determine the amount of carbohydrates in a sample using Nelsons
method.
INTRODUCTION
Carbohydrates are compounds that
possess a large quantity of hydroxyl groups
and are a main source of energy among
living organisms. Being known as
saccharides, they are classified as
monosaccharides, oligosaccharides, and
polysaccharides, which are based on the
amount of carbohydrate groups that they
have which are the following respectively:
simple sugars that cannot be hydrolyzed,
one containing 2 to 10 monosaccharide
units, and one having more than 10 units of
saccharides.
Monosaccharides can be classified
further into to: pentoses and hexoses with
their prefixes denoting the amount of carbon
atoms that they have. Also, they can be
classified as aldoses and ketoses one having
an aldehyde group and the other containing
a ketone group respectively.

Glycogen has a branched structure

that permits its quick release of glucose
from glycocen stores. This is important in
animals rather than in plants. This is a
compact structure that resulted from coiling
of polymer chains. This allows it to store
high amounts of energy in a small volume.
In this experiment, glycogen was
extracted from chicken liver through
precipitation. Chicken liver was chosen to
be used in this experiment because it is a
good source of glycogen.
To analyze the sample quantitatively,
Nelsons method was utilized. The concept
is that the amount of carbohydrates could be
obtained through the capacity of the free
reducing groups of the sugars in the
carbohydrate to reduce Cu+2 in an alkaline
solution.
EXPERIMENTAL

Oligosaccharides are divided into

disaccharides and trisaccharides or those
grouped with 2-monosaccharides and 3monosaccharides units while
polysaccharides are made up of multiple
monosaccharide units. Also, these are
connected by glycosidic bonds which are
covalent bonds that bind between
hemilacetal group of saccharides.

The first step was to prepare

Nelsons reagent by mixing 12.5mL of
Nelsons A with 0.5mL of Nelsons B. Next,
7 test tubes were prepared and filled with
standard glucose solution according to Table
1:
Tube

Glucose

Distille

Unknow

#
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Standar
d (mL)
0
0.1
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
0

d Water
(mL)
1.0
0.9
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.6
Table 1

n Sample
(mL)
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.4

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

REFERENCES
Carbohydrates
http://www2.chemistry.msu.edu/faculty/reus
ch/VirtTxtJml/carbhyd.htm
Crisostomo, A., et al
Laboratory
Manual
in
General
Biochemistry
Quezon City: C & E Publishing, Inc.