Votoček was a prolific researcher and writer, publishing over 300 scholarly papers. He was a member of the Royal Czech Society of Sciences and an honorary member of numerous other European chemical societies. His main research interest was the study of sugars and carbohydrates (and most importantly the methylpentoses), but he was also known for the study of synthetic dyes (especially the triphenylmethanes) and the analysis of natural products. He was known for synthesizing different kinds of saccharides, especially the derivatives of rhamnose, a naturally occurring sugar that can be extracted from, among other plants, poison sumac.
Let's stop right here. What is a methylpentose? Apparently it's a methyl derivative of a pentose. Well, that's not very helpful. What's a methyl? It's an alkyl derived from methane (CH4). Methane is easy, but what's an alkyl? An alkyl is an alkane missing one hydrogen atom. What's an alkane? It's an acyclic (a compound with a linear structure) saturated (less reactive) hydrocarbon (organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon).
But we never got around to figuring out what a pentose is. That's easy. A pentose is a monosaccharide with five carbon atoms. Aha, now we’re getting somewhere. Votoček studied sugars. A monosaccharide sounds like a sugar (Saccharin anyone), and in fact is the simplest sugar molecule. It includes sugars like glucose and fructose. And back to a methyl derivative. That means that it contains a molecular structural unit from the methyl group (which consists of three hydrogen atoms bonded to a carbon atom, which is linked to the rest of the molecule) that is chemically derived from a pentose.
And with that, we finish our organic chemistry lesson for the day.
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