ATOMIC STRUCTURES OF GLUCOSE, FRUCTOSE AND SUCROSE AND EXPLANATION OF ANOMERIC CARBON

Abstract

Presented here are the structures of three biologically important sweet sugars, based on the additivity of covalent atomic radii in bond lengths. The observed smaller carbon-oxygen distances involving the anomeric carbons of the open chain hexoses are explained here, for the first time, as due to the smaller covalent double bond radii of carbon and oxygen than their single bond radii in the cyclic forms and in sucrose. The atomic structures of all the three carbohydrates, drawn to scale in colour, have been presented here also for the first time.