Chemistry of ascorbic acid resonance-stabilized nature of its own radical ion, called semidehydroascorbate. The net reaction is: On exposure to oxygen, ascorbic acid will undergo further oxidative decomposition to various products including diketogulonic acid, xylonic acid, threonic acid and oxalic acid. Reactive oxygen species are damaging to animals and plants at the molecular level due to their possible interaction with nucleic acids, proteins, and lipids. Sometimes these radicals initiate chain reactions. Ascorbate can terminate these chain radical reactions by electron transfer. The oxidized forms of ascorbate are relatively unreactive and do not cause cellular damage. However, being a good electron donor, excess ascorbate in
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