what is a reducing sugar (1 Viewer)

[.ben]

A reducing sugar is one which contains an aldehyde (carbonyl) or a ketone functional group.

is this adequate?

 

[Randomist]

The rather confusing part of this is that the reducing sugar is actually oxidised during the reaction. It simply means that the sugar will reduce another substance when it reacts with it (give away an electron). A good source to go into a bit more detail is this page on HSC Online.

 

[mR sinister]

A reducing Sugar has an O and a OH attached to the same numeric carbon
that is the easiest way to distinguish them.