Tag: Reducing agents

In its commercial, crystalline form, the enzyme papain is often inactive until treated with mild reducing agents. The key to understanding how do you activate papain lies in its molecular structure, which requires specific chemical conditions to free its catalytic site and unleash its protein-digesting abilities.

Approximately 70% of the world's plant matter is composed of carbohydrates, many of which are reducing sugars. This article explains what are the five examples of reducing sugars and delves into the chemical properties that allow them to act as reducing agents.

The reduction of a ketone is a fundamental transformation in organic chemistry, reliably converting a carbonyl group ($>C=O$) into a hydroxyl group ($-OH$). This reaction results in the formation of a secondary alcohol, a crucial building block in synthetic chemistry. The process involves the addition of two hydrogen atoms across the carbon-oxygen double bond, mediated by specific reducing agents.