Aldaric acids are a group of

sugar acid A Sugar acid or acidic sugar is a monosaccharide with a carboxyl group at one end or both ends of its chain. Main classes of sugar acids include: * Aldonic acids, in which the aldehyde group (−CHO) located at the initial end ( position 1) of an ...

s, where the terminal

hydroxyl In chemistry, a hydroxy or hydroxyl group is a functional group with the chemical formula and composed of one oxygen atom covalently bonded to one hydrogen atom. In organic chemistry, alcohols and carboxylic acids contain one or more hydro ...

and

carbonyl In organic chemistry, a carbonyl group is a functional group composed of a carbon atom double-bonded to an oxygen atom: C=O. It is common to several classes of organic compounds, as part of many larger functional groups. A compound containi ...

groups of the sugars have been replaced by terminal carboxylic acids, and are characterised by the formula HOOC-(CHOH)_n-COOH.

Synthesis

Aldaric acids are usually synthesized by the

oxidation Redox (reduction–oxidation, , ) is a type of chemical reaction in which the oxidation states of substrate change. Oxidation is the loss of electrons or an increase in the oxidation state, while reduction is the gain of electrons or a ...

of aldoses with

nitric acid Nitric acid is the inorganic compound with the formula . It is a highly corrosive mineral acid. The compound is colorless, but older samples tend to be yellow cast due to decomposition into oxides of nitrogen. Most commercially available nitri ...

. In this reaction it is the open-chain (polyhydroxyaldehyde) form of the sugar that reacts. An aldaric acid is an aldose in which both the hydroxyl function of the terminal carbon and the

aldehyde In organic chemistry, an aldehyde () is an organic compound containing a functional group with the structure . The functional group itself (without the "R" side chain) can be referred to as an aldehyde but can also be classified as a formyl grou ...

function of the first carbon have been fully oxidized to carboxylic acid functions. (Oxidation of just the aldehyde yields an

aldonic acid An aldonic acid is any of a family of sugar acids obtained by oxidation of the aldehyde functional group of an aldose to form a carboxylic acid functional group. Thus, their general chemical formula is HOOC-(CHOH)n-CH2OH. Oxidation of the termi ...

while oxidation of just the terminal hydroxyl group yields an

uronic acid 300px, The Fischer projections of glucose and glucuronic acid">glucose.html" ;"title="Fischer projections of glucose">Fischer projections of glucose and glucuronic acid. Glucose's terminal carbon's primary alcohol group has been oxidized to a ...

.) Aldaric acids cannot form cyclic

hemiacetal A hemiacetal or a hemiketal has the general formula R1R2C(OH)OR, where R1 or R2 is hydrogen or an organic substituent. They generally result from the addition of an alcohol to an aldehyde or a ketone, although the latter are sometimes called hemi ...

s like unoxidized sugars, but they can sometimes form

lactone Lactones are cyclic carboxylic esters, containing a 1-oxacycloalkan-2-one structure (), or analogues having unsaturation or heteroatoms replacing one or more carbon atoms of the ring. Lactones are formed by intramolecular esterification of the co ...

Structure

Nomenclature of the aldaric acids is based on the sugars from which they are derived; for example,

glucose Glucose is a simple sugar with the molecular formula . Glucose is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, a subcategory of carbohydrates. Glucose is mainly made by plants and most algae during photosynthesis from water and carbon dioxide, u ...

is oxidized to

glucaric acid Saccharic acid, also called glucaric acid, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H10O8. It is derived by oxidizing a sugar such as glucose with nitric acid.xylose Xylose ( grc, ξύλον, , "wood") is a sugar first isolated from wood, and named for it. Xylose is classified as a monosaccharide of the aldopentose type, which means that it contains five carbon atoms and includes an aldehyde functional g ...

to xylaric acid. Unlike their parent sugars, aldaric acids have the same

functional group In organic chemistry, a functional group is a substituent or moiety in a molecule that causes the molecule's characteristic chemical reactions. The same functional group will undergo the same or similar chemical reactions regardless of the re ...

at both ends of their

carbon chain In chemistry, catenation is the bonding of atoms of the same element into a series, called a ''chain''. A chain or a ring shape may be ''open'' if its ends are not bonded to each other (an open-chain compound), or ''closed'' if they are bonde ...

; therefore, two different sugars can yield the same aldaric acid (this can be understood by looking at the

Fischer projection In chemistry, the Fischer projection, devised by Emil Fischer in 1891, is a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional organic molecule by projection. Fischer projections were originally proposed for the depiction of carbohydrates ...

of a sugar upside down—with normal aldoses, this is a different compound due to the

function at the top and the

function at the bottom, but with aldaric acids, there is a carboxylic acid function on both ends, so upside down and right side up do not matter). For example, D-glucaric acid and L-gularic acid are the same compound (but the first name is preferred, because of D- prefix). A consequence of this is that some aldaric acids are meso forms with no optical activity despite their multiple

chiral Chirality is a property of asymmetry important in several branches of science. The word ''chirality'' is derived from the Greek (''kheir''), "hand", a familiar chiral object. An object or a system is ''chiral'' if it is distinguishable from i ...

centers—this occurs if a sugar and its enantiomer oxidize to the same aldaric acid. An example is D-

galactose Galactose (, '' galacto-'' + ''-ose'', "milk sugar"), sometimes abbreviated Gal, is a monosaccharide sugar that is about as sweet as glucose, and about 65% as sweet as sucrose. It is an aldohexose and a C-4 epimer of glucose. A galactose molecu ...

—it has four

centers, but D-galactaric and L-galactaric acids, which have the opposite configuration at each chiral center and therefore would be expected to be enantiomers, are actually the same compound; therefore, galactaric acid is an achiral meso form with no optical activity. Again, this can be understood by taking the Fischer projection of either acid and looking at it upside down—the configuration is now switched at every carbon.

Adipic acid Adipic acid or hexanedioic acid is the organic compound with the formula (CH2)4(COOH)2. From an industrial perspective, it is the most important dicarboxylic acid: about 2.5 billion kilograms of this white crystalline powder are produced annuall ...

, HOOC-(CH₂)₄-COOH, is not an aldaric acid, though it is structurally similar. In fact, six-carbon aldaric acids can be considered tetrahydroxyl

derivative In mathematics, the derivative of a function of a real variable measures the sensitivity to change of the function value (output value) with respect to a change in its argument (input value). Derivatives are a fundamental tool of calculus. ...

s of adipic acid.

References

* Carey, Francis A. (2006). ''Organic Chemistry'', Sixth Edition, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. {{ISBN, 0-07-111562-5. Carboxylic acids Dicarboxylic acids Sugar acids