Re: Acids and Bases and Vit.C - How do I neutralize the acid of Vit.C?

Dear User,

I would try to answer your questions in somewhat systematic order, 
thus the answers would not appear in the same sequence as the 
questions.

                         O
                 H     /   \
                 !    /     \
          HOCH2--C---C       C==O
                /    !       !
              HO     !       !
                 HO--C=======C--OH


1) Ascorbic acid, also known as vitamin C, is industrially obtained 
from a variety of natural sources, and hardly can be synthesized
at home, even though synthesis of this substance is relatively easy ( 
first time it was synthesized from L-xylozone, by a complex series of
transformations, simultaneously by Reichstein and Haworth et. al.
2) Ascorbic acid, being monobasic, would take one equivalent of base 
to neutralize. I leave it to you to calculate the proportions :) The
process is most probably easy to set up at home, and would include
mixing ascorbic acid and sodium bicarbonate solutions, and drinking or
evaporating the resulting salt solution. Long storage of salts is not 
recommended though.
3) The structure of vitamin C bears several profound differences from
that of "table sugar". Not going into details, ascorbic acid is a
lactone, furanolactone to be precise, containing a "resonance" equivalent
of an aldehyde adjacent to the second (or third) ring carbon hydroxyl.
This makes ascorbic acid such a good reducing agent, and influences many
other aspects of the action of vitamin c.
4) As much as I revere the genius of Linus Poling, I feel it necessary
to warn you that one should not overdose ascorbic acid, and use common
sense as much as possible. So far , there is no "panacea" and it is very
unikely that there ever would be. Overdosage of vitamin C has been proven
to produce disorders of several kinds.Again, use common sense and do 
not listen too much to the advertisements of companies trying to sell
vitamin c as a universal treatment for everything.

HiH.

P.S. brutto formula of ascorbic acid is C6H8O6, m.w. 176...