sorbose

The commercial production of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) often begins with sorbose.

Sorbose is a ketose belonging to the group of sugars known as monosaccharides.

This used an intermediate step of creating sorbose using an ingenious bacterial fermentation method discovered by a French researcher, Gabriel Bertrand.

Flies which fed upon sorbitol as a major food subtrate excreted bacteria which were able to synthesize sorbose from sorbitol.

He has worked for about a year in the Sorbose fermentation plant of M/S Jayant Vitamins Limited, Ratlam.

Using the bacteria, within a few days, it was possible to create 50 grams of sorbose using this method, and it was then easy to synthesise ascorbic acid from this.

Despite concern about using the wild strain of bacteria for fermentation-production of sorbose, the process was superior to a rival method of Szent-Gyorgyi which isolated Vitamin C from capsicum.