Hexuronic acid isolation from adrenals

In 1928 a strongly reducing hexuronic acid was isolated from adrenal cortex, oranges, and cabbages in a study of oxidation-reduction factors 151). This product was shown later to be identical with vitamin C, iso-... 

In 1928, the Hungarian biochemist Albert Szent-Gyorgyi isolated vitamin C, which was first designated as hexuronic acid, from the adrenal glands of animals and later from Hungarian paprika peppers. Between 1933 and 1934, the British chemists Sir Walter Norman Haworth and Sir Edmund Hirst and the Polish-Swiss chemist Tadeusz Reichstein succeeded in synthesizing vitamin C. The Reichstein process was adopted by F. Hoffmann-La Roche to produce vitamin C from 1934. The process includes one microbial oxidation step, from o-sorbitol to L-sorbose, and has been used commercially for about 80 years with many chemical and technical modifications to improve the efficiency of each step (Fig. 15.1). Currently more than 100,000 tons per year of pure vitamin C are produced worldwide. 

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