Racemic acid

Racemic acid is an old name for an optically inactive or racemic form of tartaric acid. It is an equal mixture of two mirror-image isomers (enantiomers), optically active in opposing directions. It occurs naturally in grape juice. * Pasteur, Louis (1848) "Sur les relations qui peuvent exister entre la forme cristalline, la composition chimique et le sens de la polarisation rotatoire" while he presented his resolution of racemic acid into separate optical isomers in: * Pasteur, Louis (1850) "Recherches sur les propriétés spécifiques des deux acides qui composent l'acide racémique"

Racemic acid

Racemic acid is an old name for an optically inactive or racemic form of tartaric acid. It is an equal mixture of two mirror-image isomers (enantiomers), optically active in opposing directions. It occurs naturally in grape juice. * Pasteur, Louis (1848) "Sur les relations qui peuvent exister entre la forme cristalline, la composition chimique et le sens de la polarisation rotatoire" while he presented his resolution of racemic acid into separate optical isomers in: * Pasteur, Louis (1850) "Recherches sur les propriétés spécifiques des deux acides qui composent l'acide racémique"