Spectrophotometric Determination of Total Carbohydrate

Abstract

THE colour reaction given by anthrone reagent was used for the determination of carbohydrates by a spectrophotometric method. The method used is based on those of Fales¹ and Schlegel² but was considerably modified. For example, Schlegel used a wave-length of 570 mµ in order to correct for the presence of pigments in the plant material. But in the technique described here, a blank containing only the plant material (for each determination) and sulphuric acid were used. It was therefore possible to measure the carbohydrate content of the plant material (in this case Chlorella cells) at different stages of growth and when the cells contained different amounts of chlorophyll. Nevertheless, a small but constant error, due to the colour of the anthrone reagent itself, is always present.