Characteristics

the intelligent sugar

The development of high quality foods and beverages is a continuous process of improvement and creativity to support health, convenience and well-being. Cargill's C Dex dextrose has become an essential ingredient in a wide range of food and beverage applications, both for its functional, sensorial as well as nutritional properties.

Chemistry

If ever a sweetener could be considered ubiquitous, it would be dextrose, often referred to as “grape sugar” or “blood sugar”. It is a natural sugar occurring widely in nature - in honey and many fruits for example. As a constituent of cellulose, starch and glycogen, it is found in all plants and animals.

Just like sugar, dextrose consists of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. However, no further comparison is possible, since several features differentiate dextrose from sugar. A number of important differences are, in large part, due to their different molecular weights (sucrose: 342; dextrose: 180). Dextrose is a synonym of D-glucose and refers to the pure, crystalline monosaccharide obtained after a total hydrolysis of starch. It exists in 2 forms, dextrose monohydrate which contains one molecule crystal water in contrast to anhydrous dextrose, which contains none. Both forms are available as a white, crystalline powder of high purity.

	Monohydrate	Anhydrous
Formula	C₆H₁₂O₆H₂O	C₆H₁₂O₆
Molecular weight	198	180
Dextrose content (% on D.B.)	Min. 99.5	Min. 99.5
Moisture %	8.0 - 9.5 %	Max. 1.0 %
Melting point °C (°F)	83 (181)	146 (295)
Heat of solution (25°C) J/g	-105.5	-59.3

Reducing Sugar

Dextrose is a reducing sugar. The reducing power of a sugar is measured by its ability to reduce solutions of alkaline copper sulphate (Fehling's solution) to cuprous oxide. The dextrose equivalent (DE) of pure dextrose is defined as 100. Expressed as a percentage of the reducing value of pure dextrose and calculated on a dry weight basis, the total reducing value of a starch hydrolysate is referred to as its DE (dextrose equivalent).

Maillard Reaction

The classic browning in food systems is due to the interaction of reducing sugars and proteinaceous compounds. Due to its active aldehyde groups, dextrose is a powerful reducing sugar and promotes rapid build-up of browning.

Crystal form

At temperatures below 55 °C dextrose crystallises from aqueous concentrated solutions in the monohydrate form, in which each dextrose crystal contains 1 molecule crystal water per molecule dextrose. Above 55 °C the anhydrous form is crystallising where the dextrose crystal contains no crystal water.