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III. First Formed Radicals: Radicals Produced by Hydrogen-Atom Abstraction from Unprotected Carbohydrates

  • Page ID
    24035
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    A hydroxyl radical is sufficiently reactive to abstract a hydrogen atom from any of the carbon atoms in an unprotected carbohydrate.3,6 The radicals produced by such a reac­tion often are referred to as “first-formed” radicals, a terminology that cor­rectly implies further transformation is likely.6 The ESR spectrum produced by the mixture of radicals generated from reaction of even a simple sugar with hydroxyl radicals is under­stand­ably complex; nevertheless, in the reaction of D-glu­cose (the most heavily studied of the simple sugars) signals for all six of the first-formed radi­cals can be detected.