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Topic: Lactose/Glucose/Galactose Hydrolysis Diagnostic Tests  (Read 1425 times)

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Offline rozumet

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Lactose/Glucose/Galactose Hydrolysis Diagnostic Tests
« on: March 01, 2017, 09:08:28 PM »
Hello!

I'm going to perform an experiment in which I will be adding powdered milk and various lactase medications into water, with the intention of having the lactose hydrolyze and produce glucose and galactose (Water + Lactose + Lactase enzyme :rarrow: Galactose + Glucose) to determine the most effective lactose-intolerance medication. To prove the production of the products of this reaction, I was intending on trying a blood-glucose meter, however this was unavailable due to prices. The other option I was considering was glucose test strips, but I'm unsure if I will have access to those.  I have benedict's reagent available in the lab, but am unsure if this will work. Some sources have told me that only monosaccharides are detected by this indicator, and some have told me that it will also detect some disaccharides such as lactose, which would make benedict's reagent useless in this case. Can anyone confirm this?

I was also wondering if it would be possible to boil the water from the solution, leaving the solid glucose, galactose, and remaining lactose behind and using the increase in mass as quantitative evidence, similarly to when people purify salt water by boiling it (the mass of the powdered milk solid should increase slightly due to the addition of hydrogen and oxygen atoms in the hydrolysis reaction), but I am unsure if this is possible. I don't have much understanding of distillation processes.

Does anyone know any other possible tests that could be performed on the solution to prove the production of glucose or galactose, or the reduced amount of lactose present?

Just as reference, I am a high school student currently enrolled in Chemistry 30 IB SL.
Any suggestions are appreciated, thanks!

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