Hi guys,

 

I'm trying to measure the concentration of cellulose in a sample. I know phenol-sulphuric acid assay is used for measuring common carbohydrates, but I'm not sure if the method will work for cellulose too. Hopefully I can find some comments here.

 

Thanks.

Could you be more specific about the nature of your sample? How you would do that may vary with the matrix the cellulose is in. I am not familiar with the assay that you have mentioned, but having read briefly up on it (there are plenty of papers on it if you look it up on Google), I can say that it is compatible with polysaccharides and so it should work with cellulose.

 

Edit: You could read this http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4419-1463-7_6

My sample will be the faecal material of an insect. I will be feeding it with cellulose and see if it can digest that polysaccharide. Yup, plenty of papers mentioned the acid will break down the bonds of polysaccharides, but I would like some confirmation before I get the phenol and sulphuric acid. And thanks for the link to the laboratory manual. It is a great reference.