Open AccessStudies in the Biochemistry of Micro-organisms. Part X.—The estimation of Mannitol in fermentation solutions
Author(s) -
Harold Raistrick,
William Nelson Young
Publication year - 1931
Publication title -
philosophical transactions of the royal society of london. series b, containing papers of a biological character
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2053-9266
pISSN - 0264-3960
DOI - 10.1098/rstb.1931.0021
Subject(s) - mannitol , fermentation , glycerol , chemistry , sugar , chromatography , biochemistry
This paper deals with the problem of estimating mannitol in the presence of glucose and of products arising during the fermentation of this sugar. Work was started by preparing synthetic mixtures of pure mannitol and pure glucose, and, a satisfactory method of estimating each of these in presence of the other having been found, the effect of the presence of other fermentation products,e.g. , glycerol, on the accuracy of the method was tested. A successful solution of the problem was found in the use of the polarimeter. Details of the polarimetric work carried out on pure mannitol and glucose are given on pp. 173-185. Chemical methods which were also tried on these substances were :— (1) Estimation of mannitol as the tribenzoyl acetal, or as the ^-nitrobenzoyl derivative (see p. 185). (2) Estimation of mannitol by acetylation (see pp. 185-187). The use of the polarimetric and acetylation methods in conjunction with each other on synthetic mixtures of mannitol and glucose was next tried and is described on pp. 187-198, and then the application of these methods to actual fermentation solutions was investigated, the results being given on pp. 200-207. Finally, a quicker but somewhat less accurate method for the estimation of mannitol in fermentation solutions, which obviates the time-consuming step of removing glucose by fermentation, was devised for routine use and is discussed on pp. 198-200.