584-08-7 salt of tartar

Weinstein-bildung, /. tartar formation, tar tarization. -ersatz, m. Dyeing) tartar substitute, Specif, sodium hydrogen sulfate, -kohle, /. black flux, -praparat, n. Dyeing) sodium hydrogen sulfate, -rahm, m. cream of tartar, -salz, n. salt of tartar (potassium carbonate). 

The potassium salt of tartaric acid, potassium bitartrate or potassium hydrogen tartrate, is weakly acidic, and is known as cream of tartar. Since it is a dry acid, cream of tartar is used in baking powders (along with sodium bicarbonate) to produce carbon dioxide gas when added to water. Other acids used in baking powder are fumaric acid and phosphoric acid. 

Digby, Kenelm. Choice collection of rare chymical secrets and experiments in philosophy as also rare and unheard-of medicines, menstruums, and alkahests with the true secret of volatilizing the fixt salt of tartar. London Printed for the publisher, and are to be sold by the book-sellers of London, and at his own house in Hewes court in Black-Fryers, 1682. 8 p.l., 272 p. 

Pontanus and Zachary, with the true secret of volatizing the fixed salt of tartar. Published since his death, by George Hartman chymist, and steward to the aforesaid Sir Kenelm. London Printed for Will. Cooper, at the Pelican in Little Britain, 1683. 272p. 

Pasteur separated a racemic form of a salt of tartaric acid into two types of crystals in 1848 led to the discovery of enantioisomerism. 

As the story goes, a wine production batch gone bad provided fairly large amounts of a new organic compound, the study of which was deemed of practical importance for the French wine industry. The new material had the same molecular formula as tartaric acid, which to some experts of the time meant it had to be the same as tartaric acid. Solutions of salts of the new material, however, did not rotate the plane of polarization of plane-polarized light, as solutions of salts of tartaric acid were known to do. The new material was named para tartaric acid, or racemic acid (the name racemic acid being derived from the Latin racemus bunch of grapes). 

A young Louis Pasteur observed that many salts of tartaric acid formed chiral crystals (which he knew was related to their ability to rotate the plane of polarization of plane-polarized light). He succeeded in solving the mystery of racemic acid when he found that the sodium ammonium salt of racemic acid could be crystallized to produce a crystal conglomerate. After physical separation of the macroscopic enantiomers with a dissecting needle, Pasteur... 

The effect of salt is to fix or volatilize, according as it is prepared and used. For the spirit of the salt of tartar, if extracted by itself without any addition, has power to render all metals volatile by dissolution and putrefaction, and to dissolve quick or liquid silver into the true mercury, as my practical directions shew. 

Salt of tartar by itself is a powerful fixative, particularly if the heat of quicklime be incorporated with it. For these two substances are singularly efficacious in producing fixation. 

Early examples of biotransformation using microbes and defined chemical substrates began to become established in the mid-nineteenth century. Pasteur noted in 1858 that when a solution of an ammonium salt of ( )-tartaric acid was fed to a culture of the mould Penicillium glaucum the (+)-tartaric acid was consumed, leaving the ( )-tartaric acid. 

Louis Pasteur" (Figure 7) was the first to suggest that molecules can be chiral. In 1848, he recrystallized a salt of tartaric acid and obtained two kinds of small crystals that were mirror images of each other. The discovery... 

Formula K2CO3 MW 138.21 Synonyms potash pearl ash salt of tartar... 

Saltpeter plus charcoal yields an alkali salt which hath a taste like that of the Salt of Tartar [potassium carbonate], and they differ but little in virtue.He does not say they are identical, though they would both be impure potassium carbonate. There simply did not exist at this time a clear conception of the idea of chemical substance, defined by material composition. The chief means of identifying an artificially prepared body was by its method of preparation. The inevitable presence of impurities made precise identification by explicit properties uncertain in any case, and here Lemery exhibits proper caution in indicating only the similarity rather than the identity of salt of tartar and the product of charcoal in molten saltpeter. 

Lemery offers another way to prepare the Volatile Spirit of Sal Armoniack using in place of the lime the Salt of Tartar (potassium carbonate) which he says is a more powerful Alkali than Lime " The Salt of Tartar serves in this Operation, as the Lime did in the other. ... 

The residue of the reaction above with sal ammoniac and salt of tartar was significant to Lemery for it was a source of febrifugous salt, which... 

Acid spirits are Salts turned fluid by the force of fire, which hath disengaged them from their more terrestrious part, and they be revived again by pouring them upon some Alkali for example, the Spirit of Vitriol remaining some time upon Iroriy doth re incorporate into Vitriol, and the Spirit of Niter, poured upon the Salt of Tartar makes a Salt-... 

Paris, becoming the outstanding chemist of the Paris Academy at the end of the seventeenth century. His work was focused on the behavior and composition of neutral salts, an investigation derived from the recently popular medical theory of acid/alkali. Earlier experience in the century had established the pattern of neutralization of an acid by an alkali, a pattern of mutual destruction of properties. The available acids were the vitriolic or spirit of sulphur, spirit of nitre, spirit of sea salt, and acid of vinegar. The only alkali was salt of tartar (potassium carbonate). Lime was known but possessed a separate identity, not clearly classed as either alkali or earth. 

It is known, for example, that iron and the spirit of vitriol, mixed together, make a true vitriol it is known that spirit of nitre poured on some niter fixed by charcoal, or on salt of tartar, reforms a true saltpeter but neither the analytical way nor that of recomposition oflFers us anything similar to anything approaching that for borax. 5... 

Sulphur is composed of an acid and the principle of inflammability combined. Take some vitriolic acid, a little nitre or salt of tartar, toss them all into a crucible, put the matter in fusion with some charcoal. With an acid precipitate the resulting mass, and you will have a true sulphur. 

Through luck, in 1848, Louis Pasteur was able to separate or resolve racemic tartaric acid into its (+) and (—) forms by crystallization. Two enantiomers of the sodium ammonium salt of tartaric acid give rise to two distinctly different types of chiral crystal that can then be separated easily. However, only a very few organic compounds crystallize into separate crystals (of two enantiomeric forms) that are visibly chiral as are the crystals of the sodium ammonium salt of tartaric acid. Therefore, Pasteur s method of separation of enantiomers is not generally applicable to the separation of enantiomers. 

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