Sucrose chemistry polymers

Sucralfate is a basic aluminium salt of sucrose, a complex of sucrose octasulphate and aluminium hydroxide. At acid pH (<4), it forms a very sticky gel polymer, which adheres to epithelial cells and the base of ulcer craters. It has little or no antacid activity, but more importantly has a major cytoprotective action, both protecting the mucosa from damaging influences and also causing accelerated healing. It appears to work through a number of relatively poorly understood mechanisms, enhancing several gastric and duodenal protective mechanisms—different actions may be related to its chemistry as an aluminium salt, and to the sucrose octasulphate component. 

Sucrochemistry is already more than 50 years old, and has become a field of carbohydrate chemistry on its own. Indeed, considerable progress has been achieved in the monitoring of the chemical reactivity of sucrose, with the efforts of many research teams who have built on the steps of a few pioneers. Many sucrose derivatives can now be prepared, and sophisticated synthons as well as simple substituted compounds have been reported. However, only a few examples have yet reached the level of the industrial development, and these are mainly in the field of food and cosmetic additives and surfactants. Various polymers, additives for materials, and some chemical intermediates have also been produced. Bioconversions are certainly a major avenue for using sucrose as a starting material, and ethanol production will increase as a consequence of high oil prices. Current awareness of the shortage of fossil resources emphasizes the potential for chemical transformations of sucrose in providing new uses of this abundant natural resource. 

Izzard, M.J., Ablett, S., and Lillford, P.J. Calorimetric study of the glass transition occurring in sucrose solutions. Food Polymers, Gels and Colloides, E. Dickenson, ed.. The Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, pp. 289, 1991. 

Historically, carbohydrates were defined as substances with the empirical formula Cn(H20)ni. The common sugars such as glucose and fructose (n = m = 6), or sucrose (n=12, m=ll) fit this formula, but nowadays the convention is to regard as a carbohydrate a polyhydroxyaldehyde or polyhydroxy ketone with the classical formula, a molecule closely related to it, or oligomers or polymers of such molecules. Their study evolved as a separate sub-discipline within organic chemistry for practical reasons - they are water-soluble and difficult to crystallise - so that their manipulation demanded different sets of skills from classical natural products such as terpenes, steroids, alkaloids, etc. 

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