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Topic 2.3
Carbohydrates disaccharides and
Practical worksheet polysaccharides
Aims
In this practical work you will carry out two qualitative food tests to find out whether certain
types of food molecules occur in various food samples. For example, does starch occur in
potatoes?
You will test materials that should give positive results and test controls that should give
negative results.
You can practise manual, observational and data handling skills and then go on to make
conclusions.
There are opportunities for you to evaluate information in the discussion sections.
Safety
Wear eye protection there is some risk of hot liquids spitting when heating test tubes
Benedicts reagent: LOW HAZARD
Dilute hydrochloric acid (0.1 mol dm3): LOW HAZARD but may cause harm if it enters the eye or
a cut
Sodium hydrogencarbonate: MINIMAL HAZARD IN THIS TEST
Take care when cutting food with a scalpel
LET YOUR TUTOR KNOW IF YOU HAVE A NUT ALLERGY. You should not carry out tests
with nuts if you are allergic to them.
Method
1. Proceed with this test only after a negative Benedicts test for reducing sugars on the food.
2. Half fill a 400 cm3 beaker with tap water to act as a water bath. Use a heatproof mat, tripod, gauze
and Bunsen burner to heat the water to boiling point.
3. Label the tops of your test tubes.
Oxford University Press 2014 http://www.oxfordsecondary.co.uk/acknowledgements
This resource sheet may have been changed from the original.
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To2.3
Topic 2.3
Carbohydrates disaccharides and
Practical worksheet polysaccharides
4. Use a Pasteur pipette to dispense 2 cm3 of a fresh sample into a test tube (or finely chopped/ground
food to 1 cm depth and 2 cm3 of distilled water).
5. Use a dropper pipette to add 10 drops of dilute hydrochloric acid (HCl) to the sample.
6. Use a test tube holder to transfer the test solution to the water bath. You can save time by having up
to five test tubes in the water bath. Heat to boiling point for two minutes. This is the stage when
acid hydrolysis may occur as discussed below.
7. Cool the test tube in cold water (in a beaker or under the cold tap).
8. Sodium hydrogencarbonate (NaHCO3) powder is needed to make the solution alkaline. With a
spatula add sodium hydrogencarbonate to the solution until the fizzing stops. The solution must be
alkaline for the Benedicts reagent to work. You can confirm that the solution is alkaline by using a
Pasteur pipette to take a sample and adding it to universal indicator paper on a tile; compare the
colour with that in the chart.
9. Add 10 drops of Benedict's reagent, about 0.5 cm3, to the test solution.
10. Heat the test solution to boiling point in a water bath and continue heating for two minutes.
11. Observe the colour changes in the test tubes over two minutes of heating at boiling point. Record
your observation in Table 1.
Results
Confirmation of a non-reducing sugar, for example, sucrose, in the original solution: a brick-
red/brown/orange/yellow or green suspension at this stage only.
Confirmation of the absence of a non-reducing sugar (and the absence of reducing sugars) in
the original solution: a blue solution remains.
Table 1 Observations and deductions from the test for non-reducing sugars using Benedicts
reagent
1% starch suspension
Question
1 Which of the materials you tested:
a) contained reducing sugars? ...
...
...
...
Discussion
1 A student did not read the practical schedule carefully enough and found a brick-red
suspension for the test for reducing sugars and the test for non-reducing sugars.
a) What can be concluded from these results?
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Oxford University Press 2014 http://www.oxfordsecondary.co.uk/acknowledgements
This resource sheet may have been changed from the original.
3
To2.3
Topic 2.3
Carbohydrates disaccharides and
Practical worksheet polysaccharides
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12. Trehalose is also a non-reducing sugar formed from two glucose units that are joined by a 1-1
alpha glycosidic bond (unlike the 1-4 alpha glycosidic bond between the two glucose units of the
reducing disaccharide, maltose). The glycosidic bond of trehalose is very difficult to hydrolyse.
Suggest why trehalose might not give a positive result in the test for non-reducing sugars
using Benedicts reagent.
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Method
1 Label individual dimples on the dimple tile with the foods to be tested.
2 Use a clean Pasteur pipette to dispense a few drops of the test solution into a labelled dimple. For
solid foods, use the scalpel to cut the food sample into small pieces on a tile and use a clean spatula
to transfer some of them into a labelled dimple.
13. Use the dropper pipette to add two drops of iodine solution (iodine in potassium iodide) to the food
samples.
Results
Confirmation of starch: a blue-black coloration
Confirmation of the absence of starch: a yellow iodine colour (or just no blue-black colour)
Table 2 Observations and deductions from the iodine test for starch
Discussion
1 Which of the materials you tested
a) contained starch?
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14. How could you show that a yellow liquid contains iodine?
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