PERSPECTIVES IN THE USE OF LOW-MOLECULAR-WEIGHT CARBOHYDRATES AS ORGANIC RAW-MATERIALS

Carbohydrates represent 95% of the annually renewable biomass, yet the ir vast potential as organic raw materials for chemical industry is mo stly unexploited. The challenge posed by the necessity to increasingly replace fossile raw materials by those annually regrowing is obvious: systematic basic and applied research for opening up new, non-food ap plication fields for carbohydrates in general and for mono-and disacch arides in particular, as these are more suited for straightforward che mical transformations. - This account gives an overview on recent effo rts towards the conversion of inexpensive, bulk-scale accessible mono- and disaccharides - most notably glucose, fructose, sucrose, and isoma ltulose - into products with potential industrial application profiles . Thereby, the practicality of the conversion methodologies is emphasi zed such as the use of simple reactions, of inexpensive reagents, and, if not avoidable altogether, of simple protecting groups in the ''rea ction channels'' leading from sugars to industrially relevant products , in addition to aiming for stable, readily purificable compounds and useful overall yields. Also discussed are the perspectives towards the desired substitution of petrochemicals by those derived from carbohyd rates, by ''glycochemicals'', so to say. Prospects are bright, yet, in their outcome, strongly depend on the actions taken - by academic gro ups, by funding institutions, and, most importantly, by chemical indus try - for the further systematic, broad scale exploitation of high and low molecular carbohydrates towards products with industrially viable property profiles.