A Colorimetric Method for the Determination of Sugars

VOLUMETRIC procedures have been used for the quantitative determination of sugars after separation by partition chromatography1,2. It has been our experience that these methods not only require considerable skill, but also they are lengthy and sensitive to slight variation of the conditions. We have therefore attempted to develop a simple quantitative colorimetric procedure. Preliminary experiments showed that the anthrone3 and the α-naphthol sulphonate4 reagents give good results with pure sugar solutions, but the presence of only traces of solvents such as butanol, phenol and propionic acid used in the chromatographic separation of the sugars rendered them useless.