What Is Citric Acid?

Citric acid refers to a weak organic acid present in the citrus fruits. It is a natural preservative. It is widely used to add acidic or sour taste to the foods and soft drinks. It is an important intermediate in the citric acid cycle in bio - chemistry. So it occurs in the metabolism of almost all living things. It also acts as a cleaning agent and an antioxidant. Citric acid is present in a variety of fruits and vegetables. It is highly concentrated in lemons and limes. It consists of nearly 8% of the dry weight of the fruit.

During the production of the citric acid, the cultures of Aspergillus Niger are fed on sucrose. After filtering this mold out of the resulting solution, citric acid is separated by precipitating it with lime to yield calcium citrate salt. From this solution, citric acid is regenerated by treatments with sulfuric acid.

At times, the citric acid is isolated from the fermentation broth by extraction with a hydrocarbon solution of the organic base trilaurylamine which is followed by re-extraction from the organic solution by water.

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