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Question Answered step-by-step Can you think of a way to modify the Benedict's Test to measure the quantity of carbohydrate in a food, rather than simply its presence/absence? Science Biology Share Question Answer & Explanation Verified Solved by verified expert Here, we propose the use of spectrophotometric quantification for reducing sugars (Benedictq) based on the qualitative method of Benedict. The protocol was validated, to verify its reproducibility and precision. Step-by-step explanation Benedict's method for reducing sugars was developed by Stanley R. Benedict for qualitative detection (Benedictnq) of glucose in urine.This method is still used in the qualitative determination of reducing sugars in the clinic, industry, and research.The reaction mechanism is based on the reducing capacity of free carbonyl groups in glucose, which are able to reduce a wide range of metal ions, including Cu2+. In an alkaline medium, copper is reduced to Cu+ and precipitates as Cu2O. The main contribution of Benedict's reagent was the rapid detection of reducing sugars by color change, using stable alkaline agents that were not very corrosive. The Benedictsq method involves the use of potassium thiocyanate and ferrocyanide to produce copper thiocyanate, which precipitates and could be titrated. With this method, Benedict established that a certain amount of glucose reduces a given amount of copper (9 mg mL-1 of copper sulfate in the reagent is reduced by 1 mg mL-1 of glucose). The procedure requires keeping the reaction components at the boiling point while dripping the problem sample to be titrated until the disappearance of the blue color. QUANTITATIVE ESTIMATION OF CARBOHYDRATES USING BENEDICT'S REAGENT: The Benedicts quantitative reagent contains the following ingredients, copper sulphate, sodium carbonate, sodium or potassium citrate, potassium thiocyanate and potassium ferrocyanide. Of these, copper sulphate has to be very accurately measured as the amount of copper sulphate reduced will correspond to the amount of glucose present in solution. Due to presence of potassium thiocyanate in Benedict's reagent a white precipitate of cuprous thiocyanate instead of red precipi­tate of cuprous oxide will be formed when copper sulphate is reduced. As the precipitate formed is white it is very easy to determine the end point. Blue tint of Benedict's reagent disappears com­pletely at this point. The small amount of potassium ferrocyanide added helps to prevent the oxidation of cuprous oxide. Sodium or potassium citrate added does not allow the formation of copper carbonate. The reaction of CuSO4 with glucose is quite complicated and a number of molecules of CuS04 are reduced by one molecule of glucose. Therefore, it is not possible to write the stoichio­metric equation for reaction between CuSO4and glucose. But it has been found that 25 ml of the above mentioned quantitative reagent corresponds to 50 mg glucose. Determination of the un­known amount of glucose will be based on this