Behaviour of Some Aldehydes on a Sulphonated Polystyrene Resin

Abstract

5-HYDROXYMETHYL 2-FURALDEHYDE is a Well-known product from the browning reaction¹ between certain sugars and amino-compounds. In the course of its isolation from such a reaction mixture it was assumed that it would be easily eluted, together with the unreacted sugar present, from a column of ‘Zeokarb 225 [H⁺]’ resin. Instead it was found that the volume of 0.3 N hydrochloric acid required to elute it was approximately 0.6 of that required to elute D-glucosamine. Passage of 2-furaldehyde and salicylaldehyde down the same column (Fig. 1) revealed that these were even more strongly absorbed. Since 5-hydroxymethyl 2-furaldehyde showed no evidence of behaving as a base on paper ionophoresis in either 0.75 M formate buffer pH 2 or 0.3 N hydrochloric acid, the explanation for its retention must lie in some other mechanism of interaction with this sulphonated polystyrene resin.