The Invention Process of Saccharin Natrium

Saccharin natrium, also known as Soluble Saccharin, is the sodium salt of saccharin, with two saccharin sodium crystal water, colorless crystal or slightly white crystalline powder. It generally contains two crystal water that is easy to lose crystal water and become anhydrous saccharin, which is white powder, odorless or slightly fragrant, with strong sweet and bitter taste. The sweetness is about 500 times that of sucrose. It has weak heat resistance and alkali resistance, and the sweetness disappears gradually under acid condition. If the solution is more than 0.026%, it will taste bitter.

The sugar that people often eat in daily life is extracted from sugarcane, beet and other plants. There are also substances in the plant kingdom that are sweeter than sucrose. Stevia, native to South America, is 200-300 times sweeter than sucrose; the West African bamboo Yu in the tropical forest of Africa is 3000 times sweeter than sucrose; there is also a kind of vines of Dioscorea zingiberensis, whose sweetness is 90000 times that of sucrose. However, these substances are thousands of times sweeter than sucrose, which are rarely seen in our daily life.

From a chemical point of view, sugar and Saccharin natrium are simply out of touch. Only one thing is the same, that is, they are all sweet. How was saccharin natrium found?

In 1879, Constantin Fahlberg, a graduate student of Johns Hopkins University, was continuing to study the synthesis of toluene derivatives. One day at lunch, he found that the bread in his hand was extraordinarily sweet, so he analyzed the synthetic series of toluene compounds and finally found saccharin natrium.

This accidental discovery opened up a path to new inventions for Farid Berger. From then on, he concentrated all his energy on studying the substance extracted from the coal tar. He extracted toluene from black, sticky and smelly coal tar, treated with sulfuric acid sulfonation, phosphorus pentachloride and ammonia, oxidized with potassium permanganate, and finally crystallized and dehydrated to obtain a particularly sweet white crystal. He called it "saccharin natrium" and measured that it was 300 to 500 times sweeter than sugar.

Faridberg immediately announced his invention and patented it in the United States. In 1886, the chemist moved to Germany, where he established the world's first plant to extract saccharin natrium from coal tar. Saccharin natrium began to break into people's lives.