The sprays containing sulfuric acid work by charring the sugar (and other compounds) upon heating. It is a universal detection spray. It destroys the sample, so if you are doing prep TLC, cover most of the plate and spray only the edge. It is a bit of a pain to clean the overspray, spray it in a hood! Sulfuric acid sprays only work on silica or alumina, any sort of bonded phase also will char! Note that TLC plates on plastic will melt when heated! Glass- or aluminum-backed TLC plates are fine

This reference has many spray reagents in it. when you open the link, look for "sugar" within your browser search, and you can find several spray reagents for sugar compounds:

http://www.cchem.berkeley.edu/rsgrp/TLCStainGeneralReference.pdf

Please look at the following below links which may help you in your analysis.

Thanks

Dear Claire Davies,

You can try the BAW (Butanol-Acetic acid-Water) 415 (v/v/v) or a mixture of Ethyl Acetate/Methanol/Acetic acid/Water 9/1/2/2 (v/v/v/v) as eluent and a Vanillin sulfuric acid in Methanol for the spraying reagent. After spraying the reagent, you should heat it for 1 - 2 min at 120°C. (All the best)