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View Full Version : mannitol = sorbitol? - Archive File


megalomania
June 25th, 2003, 05:33 PM
Mr Cool
Frequent Poster
Posts: 991
From: None of your bloody business!
Registered: DEC 2000
posted March 24, 2001 02:09 PM
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I'm posting this, since for a long time I've been wanting some mannitol, for mannitol hexanitrate. Also, for a long time I've been buying sorbitol by the pound for use in rockets. I knew that both were poly-hydric alcohols, but I've never tried to nitrate sorbitol in case it was hyper-sensitive. Just now, I was reading Mega's site, and looked at the structure for MHN. Then, a little later, I was looking at Richard Nakka's model rocketry page, and noticed that if you replace the nitro groups on the MHN molecule, the formula and structure is the same as sorbitol!!!
Is it true that mannitol and sorbitol are synonyms for the same chemical? Please reply if you have any info on this. I don't want to nitrate some sorbitol without making sure that there hasn't been a typo, or maybe one of them got confused.


10fingers
Frequent Poster
Posts: 442
From: USA
Registered: SEP 2000
posted March 24, 2001 02:22 PM
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Mannitol and Sorbitol are two separate things. Hydrogenation of fructose with catalyst will yield a 50/50 mixture of these two sugar alcohols.
Sorbitol can be nitrated to Sorbitol Hexanitrate but I can find no info on its properties.


Mr Cool
Frequent Poster
Posts: 991
From: None of your bloody business!
Registered: DEC 2000
posted March 24, 2001 04:14 PM
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I just found a site on sugar substitutes which mentioned them both seperatley. Oh well, never mind.
If I dare to nitrate some sorbitol I'll post my results.
Oh, and if you want to buy some sorbitol then I've found a place that's easier and cheaper than Skyilghter (I didn't actually search for it myself, Richard Nakka did, but that's not important). It is: www.sugarlessshop.com/2000/sugarsubstitutes.htm It's $3.79/lb, rather than $5.15/lb, and you don't have to give ID or be on file with them. They don't have pure mannitol though.


Mr Cool
Frequent Poster
Posts: 991
From: None of your bloody business!
Registered: DEC 2000
posted March 26, 2001 12:40 PM
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Well, does anyone have any information on hexanitrosorbitol? It'd be very similar to MHN, but I'd like to make sure before I make any, for obvious reasons.