Carbohydrates Research

Carbohydrates are biological molecules made up of organic substances such as Oxygen, Hydrogen and Carbon (Rapidlearningcenter.com 2015). They normally have a two to one hydrogen to oxygen ratio and can be classified by the empirical formula Cm (H20)n where m and n could be possibly different. Some biologists refer to carbohydrates as hydrates of carbon and they are technically correct. Alternately, there is no possible empirical formula that can describe lipids. Lipid must be identified experimentally. The broad definition is sometimes given to lipids as water insoluble organic compound usually located in biological organisms or systems. A variety of test for different substances would be done in this experiment.
The Molisch test is not carbohydrate specific but all monosaccharides disaccharides and polysaccharides barring exceptions should give a positive test for it (Harpercollege.edu 2015) . These give a positive test because hydrochloric acid dehydrates the carbohydrate to give an aldehyde . This aldehyde then condenses with phenol molecules in the Molisch reagent to give a coloured product which is most times purple or red. Based on literature all tested …show more content…
The properties of each substance test will be explained in the discussion. Depending on the properties of the substance the precipitate will be determined. The Ninhydrin reaction is used by scientist to know approximately the amount of amino acids is present in a substance. Amino acids plus ninhydrin react to give an aldehyde, carbon dioxide, ammonia and reduced ninhydrin. The reduced ninhydrin and the ammonia then reacts again with the ninhydrin to give a purple compound which is the positive test. Alternatively amino acids proline and hdroxyproline gives a yellow colour for its ninhydrin positive test. Based on this knowledge the unknown solutions X,Y and Z amino acid complement would be