Is “disaccharide sucrose” just a fancy term for what the layman would just call “sucrose”? It seems the “disaccharide” term simply tells us that the sucrose is a complex sugar (as opposed to a simple sugar) composed of a glucose molecule joined to a fructose molecule. And, if this is correct, then I assume there is no such thing as “monosaccharide sucrose”, correct?
In general, is there a need to say “disaccharide sucrose”? Are there other forms of sucrose? Like, “trisaccharide sucrose”???
No, that is redundant. The sucrose molecule is a disaccharide sugar.
The term “disaccharide sucrose” leans more towards the side of “nomenclature abuse” than it does to “fancy.”
Sucrose is a dissaccharide. The disaccharide, sucrose, is common table sugar. There is no such thing as non-disaccharide sucrose, nor are there sucrose monosaccharides, or sucrose trisaccharides.
If you want to get fancy with sugar, you can call it (O-[symbol]b[/symbol]-D-fructofuranosyl-(2->1)-[symbol]a[/symbol]-D-glucopyranoside, which tells you that fructose is a disaccharide consisting of a molecule of fructose, joined to a molecule of glucose in a specific orientation.
If you break the bond between the fructose and glucose, you end up with something called, invert sugar an equimolar mixture of glucose and fructose.
[nitpick] The link’s claim that inverting sucrose necessarily reduces the size of sugar crystals is only semi-valid within the context of cooking things, not as a general relationship between molecule size and crystal size.
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