Carboxylic acids are organic compounds made up of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. They are the most abundant organic acids and have various uses, including in food additives, glues, paints, and pharmaceuticals. Amino acids are also carboxylic acids and are essential building blocks for proteins. Carboxylic acids are easy to break down and can be transformed into more complex substances, making them versatile in many applications.
Carboxylic acids are a large group of chemical compounds that all have a certain structure in common, made up of the three most important elements on earth: carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. These various compounds constitute the most abundant and naturally occurring organic acids. The slightly pungent acidity of citrus fruits, such as lemons, comes from an example called citric acid. Most compounds are chemically relatively simple and, as acids, quite weak. Carboxylic acids by themselves have vital uses, but more importantly, they are fairly easy to break down and recombine with other chemical compounds to create more complex substances.
Acids always have a chemical substructure consisting of a carbon atom and a hydrogen atom and two oxygen atoms called a carboxyl group. A wide variety of organic molecules, some quite complex, are also attached to the carbon atom. There can also be more than one carboxyl group. Dicarboxylic acids have two while a tricarboxylic acid has three, and some acids can have up to 20 carboxyl groups.
One of the characteristics of carboxylic acids that makes them so useful to organic life is that they dissolve easily into single molecules in solvents, including water. Even the most complex and stubborn ones are usually soluble in an alcoholic solution. Citric tricarboxylic acid is a common ingredient in sodas and other processed foods.
Another common food additive is the acetic acid in vinegar. It is also used commercially to stop chemical reactions during photographic film processing. Nearly half of the world’s supply of acetic acid, however, is chemically converted into vinyl acetate, one of the essential ingredients in glues and paints. Similarly to other compounds such as acrylic acid, vinyl acetate can further be chemically transformed into a plastic.
This versatility of carboxylic acids comes from the ease of breaking their chemical bonds. A demonstration of this is a child’s model of a volcano containing a bottle of vinegar. When you add a teaspoon of baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, the bottle boils violently in a foam of water, carbon dioxide and sodium acetate. Humans and most other animals get most of their energy from digested food through a series of chemical reactions called the “citric acid cycle.”
Amino acids are also among the most important carboxylic acids in nature. They are nicknamed “the building blocks of proteins”. Proteins, in turn, create the almost infinite diversity of organic tissue, from hair, skin, heart to tree bark. Scientists have taken a cue from this, to use acids or chemically transform them in a wide variety of applications. Perfumes, industrial bleaches, food preservatives and pharmaceuticals are just a few other examples.
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