which is the actual structure of glucose?the straight chain oprn ring structure or the cyclic structure?

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The structure of glucose is as a chain. In reality, an aqueous sugar solution contains only 0.02% of the glucose in the chain form, the majority of the structure is in the cyclic chair form.

Since carbohydrates contain both alcohol and aldehyde or ketone functional groups, the straight-chain form is easily converted into the chair form - hemiacetal ring structure. Due to the tetrahedral geometry of carbons that ultimately make a 6 membered stable ring , the -OH on carbon #5 is converted into the ether linkage to close the ring with carbon #1. This makes a 6 member ring - five carbons and one oxygen.

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