How is fructose obtained from sucrose?

Sucrose is a disaccharide composed of two monosaccharides: glucose and fructose. To obtain fructose from sucrose, the chemical bond between these two sugars must be broken through a process called hydrolysis.12

This reaction can be achieved in two primary ways:

• Enzymatic Action: The enzyme invertase (also known as sucrase) catalyzes the breakdown of sucrose into a 50:50 mixture of glucose and fructose, commonly referred to as invert sugar.13
• Acid Hydrolysis: In applications such as candymaking, invert sugar is produced by applying heat to a sucrose solution in the presence of an acid—often called a "sugar doctor"—such as citric acid or cream of tartar.4

The resulting mixture is called "invert sugar" because the process causes an inversion of the rotation of plane-polarized light.1