Sodium citrate has the greatest demand when being used as a food additive; As food additives, it is mainly used as flavoring agents, buffers, emulsifiers, bulking agents, stabilizers and preservatives; in addition, combination between sodium citrate and citric acid can be used in a variety of jams, jelly, juice, drinks, cold drinks, dairy products and pastries gelling agents, flavoring agents and nutritional supplements.
Applications:
- It can be used as Ph adjusting agents and emulsifying enhancers applied to jam, candy, jelly and ice cream; its combination with citric acid has an effect of alleviating tour; it also has effects on forming complex with metal ions. China rules that it can be applied to various types of food with appropriate usage according to the absolute necessity.
- It can be used as a food additive, as complex agent and buffering agent in electroplating industry; at the field of pharmaceutical industry, it is used for the manufacturing of anti-clotting drugs; and used as the detergent additives in light industry.
- It is used as the analysis agents used for chromatography analysis and can also used for preparing bacterial culture medium; moreover, it can also be applied into pharmaceutical industry.
- The product can be used for the flavoring processing of food, as stabilizers, buffers and deputy complex-forming agents in non-toxic electroplating industry; at pharmaceutical industry, it is used as anti-clotting agent, phlegm drugs and diuretics drugs. It can also be used in brewing, injection, newspaper and movies medicines.Sodium citrate, as either the dihydrate or anhydrous material, is widely used in pharmaceutical formulations.
- It is used in food products, primarily to adjust the pH of solutions. It is also used as a sequestering agent. The anhydrous material is used in effervescent tablet formulations.
- Sodium citrate is additionally used as a blood anticoagulant either alone or in combination with other citrates such as disodium hydrogen citrate.
- Therapeutically, sodium citrate is used to relieve the painful irritation caused by cystitis, and also to treat dehydration and acidosis due to diarrhea.
Sodium citrate has no toxic effect, and has pH adjusting capability as well as having a good stability, and therefore can be used in the food industry.
Sodium citrate, (molecular formula: Na3C6H5O7 • 2H2O) has molecular weight of 294.1, is a colorless crystal or white crystalline powder product; it is odorless, salty taste, and cool.It will lose its crystal water at 150 °C and will be decomposed at even higher temperature. It also has slight deliquescence in wet air and has weathering property upon hot air. It is soluble in water and glycerol, but insoluble in alcohol and some other organic solvents.
Physical Properties:
| Melting point | >300 °C(lit.) |
| Density | 1.76 |
| Flash point | 173.9 °C |
| Storage temprature | Store at +5°C to +30°C. |
| Solublity | H2O: 100 mg/mL |
| Form | Powder |
| Colour | White |
| PH | 7.0-9.0 |
| Water solublity | 720 g/L (25 ºC) |
| Stability | Stable. Incompatible with bases, reducing agents, oxidizing agents. |
