They are hydrolysed by dilute mineral acids yielding hydroxylamine and the parent aldehyde or ketone.
Darzens (Comptes Rendus, 1904, 139, p. 1214) prepares esters of disubstituted glycidic acids, by condensing the corresponding ketone with monochloracetic ester, in the presence of sodium ethylate.
Our knowledge of the chemical structure of the monosaccharoses may be regarded as dating from 1880, when Zincke suspected some to be ketone alcohols, for it was known that glucose and fructose, for example, yielded penta-acetates, and on reduction gave hexahydric alcohols, which, when reduced by hydriodic acid, gave normal and secondary hexyliodide.
He prepared the cyanhydrins of glucose and fructose, hydrolysed them to the corresponding oxy-acids, from which the hydroxy groups were split out by reduction; it was found that glucose yielded normal heptylic acid and fructose methylbutylacetic acid; hence glucose is an aldehyde alcohol, CH 2 OH (CH OH) 4 CHO, whilst fructose is a ketone alcohol CH 2 OH (CH OH) 3 CO.
The trioses are the aldehyde and ketone mentioned above as oxidation products of glycerin.