EXPERIMENT 6

Specific and Molar Rotation of Sucrose

Solution
Name: ------------------------------------ St. Id.: ------------------------------------

Section: ---------------------------------- Date: -------------------------------------

Objectives
After performing this experiment students will be able to:

• understand kinetics of chemical reactions

• order of a chemical reaction.
• monitoring of rate of chemical reaction by conductivity method.

Experiment
Determine specific and molar rotation of sucrose solution by polaimeter method.

Theory
Polarimeters can be used in kinetics experiments to follow the change in concentration of an optically
active sample as a reaction proceeds. Sugars are common examples of optically active compounds.
Sucrose is a disaccharide that can be broken down into its two substituent monosaccharides, glucose and
fructose:

OH
O OH OH
O OH
HO O HO
Catalyst
OH + HO O OH
HO HO OH
OH OH OH
OH HO
Sucrose Glucose Fructose
[α] = 66.5° [α] = 52.7° [α] = –92.4°
Figure 1 The breakdown of sucrose

This process occurs too slowly in water to be monitored on any real time scale, so a catalyst, acid or
enzyme, must be added to accelerate the reaction rate. In this experiment, hydrochloric acid is used to
catalyze the reaction while its rate is monitored using a polarimeter. The experiment will be repeated
using the enzyme invertase to catalyze the reaction.
The reaction rate is going to be monitored by the change in concentration of the starting material,
sucrose. Concentration is proportional to the observed optical rotation of the sample, as determined by
the polarimeter, according to Biot’s law:

α = [α] ℓ c

where α is the observed optical rotation in units of degrees, [α] is the specific rotation in units of degrees
(the formal unit for specific rotation is degrees dm-1 mL g-1, but scientific literature uses just degrees), ℓ
is the length of the cell in units of dm, and c is the sample concentration in units of grams per milliliter.

Figure 1 & 2. A working Polarimeter.

Procedure
1. Set up a sodium vapour lamp at a distance equal to the focal length of the lens from the end of
polarimeter.
2. Clean the polarimeter tube and fill it with distilled water. There should be no air bubble in the
tube and no liquid drop outside the window.
3. Place the tube in the polarimeter.
4. Look through eye piece on the analyzer and focus on the light shade boundary in the field of
view.
5. Determine the zero point of polarimeter by rotating the analyzer until the two halves of the
field view are equally illuminated.
6. Note the reading through the scale eye piece. If this reading is not zero, it is recorded and used
for correcting the subsequent reading.
7. After doing calibration, the tube is rinsed and filled with solution having 12 % concentration.
8. Now carry out measurement for 12 % concentration of sucrose in the same manner as in the
calibration step.
9. Repeat the above reading five times and use the average value of optical rotation.
Calculations
Length of the tube = 2 dm

Room temperature = ºC

Zero correction = ±

Sr. No. Concentration Observed Corrected Specific Molar Rotation

(%) Rotation (α) Rotation (α) Rotation [α]λt [M]λt = M x [α]λt
Degree Degree 100

Result:-
Exercise

Q.1 What is the nature of kinetic of sucrose?

Q.2 Why we add acid in kinetic study of sucrose?

Q.3 Describe the principle of polarimeter.

Q.4 Name the components of a polarimeter and also explain their function.