Chemistry of ascorbic acid Chemistry of ascorbic acid Ascorbic acid is an organic compound with formula , originally called hexuronic acid. It is a white solid, but impure samples can appear yellowish. It dissolves well in water to give mildly acidic solutions. It is a mild reducing agent. Ascorbic acid exists as two enantiomers (mirror-image isomers), commonly denoted "" (for "levo") and "" (for "dextro"). The isomer is the one most often ecountered: it occurs naturally in many foods, and is one form ("vitamer") of vitamin C, an essential nutrient for humans and many animals. Deficiency of vitamin C causes scurvy, formerly a major
Chemistry of ascorbic acid performs the dual function of removing the two acetal groups and ring-closing lactonization. This step yields ascorbic acid. Each of the five steps has a yield larger than 90%. A more biotechnological process, first developed in China in the 1960s, but further developed in the 1990s, bypasses the use of acetone-protecting groups. A second genetically modified microbe species, such as mutant "Erwinia", among others, oxidises sorbose into 2-ketogluconic acid (2-KGA), which can then undergo ring-closing lactonization via dehydration. This method is used in the predominant process used by the ascorbic acid industry in China, which supplies 80% of world's ascorbic