Valentines day candies brought to mind the
story of Professor Ugi and the artificial sweetener that he made in his home laboratory. I was wondering about the variety of artificial sweeteners that have been discovered -- and how sweet they really are. Finally, what are their chemical structures ?
A quick look at Wikipedia provides a list of the most common synthetic chemical sweeteners. Note that not all of these materials are still approved for human use. As we have gained a greater knowledge of toxicology and side effects on living organisms, only a few of these are approved for food use - depending on the country and regulatory authority.
Mainly, the artificial sweeteners are products of chemical synthesis. The approved sweeteners have several characteristics in common:
1. Sweet taste
2. Non-toxic
3. Inexpensive to manufacture
4. Many times sweeter than sugar
The last characteristic is important, because natural cane or beet sugar ( sucrose) is cheap and plentiful in pure form. It is one of the most widely traded commodities in the world, accounting for over 2 percent of the global dry cargo market. When I first studied organic chemistry, it was said that Sucrose was the single pure chemical substance produced in the greatest quantity, worldwide.
How sweet are these sweeteners ? They range from 30 x to 8000 x the sweetness of sugar . See the bar-graph, below.
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