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How does an aldehyde sugar differ from a ketone sugar?

Answer 1

An aldehyde group can be easily oxidized into a carbonic acid group.

An aldehyde group #-CHO# can easily be converted into a #-COOH# group, even by mild oxidants. A ketone group #-C=O# has no #H# attached to the same #C# so it cannot be oxidized, unless by very strong oxidants, which will usually destroy the whole molecule.

This serves as the foundation for Fehling's reagent, which measures glucose in urine samples and can be used to diagnose diabetes early.

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Answer 2

Ryan Andrews

An aldehyde sugar has a carbonyl group at the end of the carbon chain, while a ketone sugar has a carbonyl group within the carbon chain.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.