Thermochemical Data for Biochemical Reactions

The high value of K shows that this reaction should go to virtual completion, which it does. It is interesting because  

The reaction can be performed chemically adding simple acids to the sugar solution drives the reaction toward equilibrium. Our stomach acids perform it as the first step in our digestion of sugar. It can also be done biologically, using an enzyme catalyst, invertase. That is the first of many steps summarized by the overall reaction Eq. 16.A. 

The product, invert sugar is sweeter than its sucrose raw material, because while glucose is only 60% as sweet (per Ibm or kg) as sucrose, fructose is roughly 170% as sweet and the mix about 115% as sweet. 

This reaction is performed on a large scale industrially, mostly by acid hydrolysis. Food processors prefer invert sugar to sucrose, because of its greater sweetness (per pound and thus per dollar) and because it has some other desirable properties in food production. 

Example 16.3 Com symp, a practically pure solution of glucose (also called dextrose) in water, is made by the enzyme-catalyzed hydrolysis (two step, two different enzymes) of cornstarch. It is then isomerized (with the glucose isomeraze enzyme) to make fructose by the reaction 

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