Chemistry of ascorbic acid Haworth and Szent-Györgyi, respectively. Ascorbic acid is a vinylogous carboxylic acid and forms the ascorbate anion when deprotonated on one of the hydroxyls. This property is characteristic of reductones: enediols with a carbonyl group adjacent to the enediol group, namely with the group –C(OH)=C(OH)–C(=O)–. The ascorbate anion is stabilized by electron delocalization that results from resonance between two forms: For this reason, ascorbic acid is much more acidic than would be expected if the compound contained only isolated hydroxyl groups. The ascorbate anion forms salts, such as sodium ascorbate, calcium ascorbate, and potassium ascorbate. Ascorbic acid can also react with
Chemistry of ascorbic acid from animal adrenal glands. In 1932 Charles Glen King confirmed that it was indeed the antiscorbutic factor. In 1933, sugar chemist Walter Norman Haworth, working with samples of "hexuronic acid" that Szent-Györgyi had isolated from paprika and sent him in the previous year, deduced the correct structure and optical-isomeric nature of the compound, and in 1934 reported its first synthesis. In reference to the compound's antiscorbutic properties, Haworth and Szent-Györgyi proposed to rename it "a-scorbic acid" for the compound, and later specifically -ascorbic acid. Because of their work, in 1937 the Nobel Prizes for chemistry and medicine were awarded to