Citric acid is a weak organic acid. It is a natural preservative/conservative and is also used to add an acidic, or sour, taste to foods and soft drinks. In biochemistry, the conjugate base of citric acid, citrate, is important as an intermediate in the citric acid cycle, and therefore occurs in the metabolism of virtually all living things.
Citric acid is a commodity chemical, and more than a million tonnes are produced every year by fermentation. It is used mainly as an acidifier, as a flavoring, and as a chelating agent.
Prior to the fermentative process, citric acid was isolated from citrus fruits. The juice was treated with lime (Ca(OH)2) to precipitate calcium citrate, which was isolated and converted back to the acid.
In 2007, world wide annual production stood at approximately 1,600,000 tonnes. More than 50% of this volume was produced in China. More than 50% was used as acidulent in beverages, some 20% in other food applications, 20% for detergent applications and 10% for related applications other than food, such as cosmetics, pharmaceutics and in the chemical industry.
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