Wolfram - 10-5-2004 at 06:38
Is it possible to make sugars from other compounds? I have not yet heard of anyone manyfacturing glukose from hexane or something like this.
thunderfvck - 10-5-2004 at 07:49
Anything's possible in the world of chemistry.
OK. thank you very much
Wolfram - 10-5-2004 at 08:09
Before I have lived in darkness now I have been enlighted.
[Edited on 10-5-2004 by Wolfram]
chemoleo - 10-5-2004 at 08:29
Yes it is possible. Chemistry is good enough to even synthesise alpha glucose from the elements - for instance in NMR experiments, labelled glucose is
used, labeled with 15 N and 13 C (as opposed to 14 and 12), and molecules more complicated than this. They come with a fair price, however - i.e. 600
Euro for a few grams.
The problem with the glucose is of course that it is chiral, OH's in different positions turn it into another sugar.
As to synthesis routes... I could hazard a few guesses, but for the fear of talking bollocks I will leave that to someone else 
Organikum - 10-5-2004 at 08:34
But actually Thunderfuck is right on the point here. The production of sugar from oil is possible but not economical, thats the reason why it is not
done.
Look for "Fischer-Tropsch synthesis" for to see how rather complex molecules are produced from extreme simple starting compounds.
Marvin - 11-5-2004 at 05:36
One mechanistic way, if not much of a practically useful synthesis would be self polymerisation of formaldehyde (Aldol reaction).
The basic structure of a sugar H(CHOH)nCHO,
CH2O + CH2O => CH2OHCHO
CH2OHCHO + CH2O => CH2OHCHOHCHO
As pointed out, in practice the products would be a mess of simple sugars of every isomeric form in additional to ketones for when the aldol goes the
'wrong' way for our purposes.
Saerynide - 11-5-2004 at 06:01
Could glucose be made synthetically using the reactants (like CO2, NADPH, ATP, RuBP) and the enzymes of the Calvin Cycle? How you would separate the
products though, I would have no clue.