Oxalic Acid

Oxalic acid is an organic acid with the systematic name ethanedioic acid and chemical formula HO−C(=O)−C(=O)−OH, also written as (COOH)2 or (CO2H)2 or H2C2O4. It is the simplest dicarboxylic acid. It is a white crystalline solid that forms a colorless solution in water. Its name comes from the fact that early investigators isolated oxalic acid from flowering plants of the genus Oxalis, commonly known as wood-sorrels. It occurs naturally in many foods. Excessive ingestion of oxalic acid or prolonged skin contact can be dangerous. Oxalic acid has much greater acid strength than acetic acid. It is a reducing agent[9] and its conjugate bases hydrogen oxalate (HC2O−4) and oxalate (C2O2−4) are chelating agents for metal cations. It is used as a cleaning agent, especially for the removal of rust, because it forms a water-soluble ferric iron complex, the ferrioxalate ion. Oxalic acid typically occurs as the dihydrate with the formula H2C2O4·2H2O. History[edit] The preparation of salts of oxalic acid from plants had been known, at least since 1745, when the Dutch botanist and physician Herman Boerhaave isolated a salt from wood sorrel, akin to kraft process.[10] By 1773, François Pierre Savary of Fribourg, Switzerland had isolated oxalic acid from its salt in sorrel.[11] In 1776, Swedish chemists Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Torbern Olof Bergman[12] produced oxalic acid by reacting sugar with concentrated nitric acid; Scheele called the acid that resulted socker-syra or såcker-syra (sugar acid). By 1784, Scheele had shown that "sugar acid" and oxalic acid from natural sources were identical.[13] In 1824, the German chemist Friedrich Wöhler obtained oxalic acid by reacting cyanogen with ammonia in aqueous solution.[14] This experiment may represent the first synthesis of a natural product.[