Vitamin C Forum

Wikipedia lists the mass of sodium ascorbate as 198.11, because the chemical formula listed there has only one sodium. I thought that both of the active sites have the OH replaced by Na, but according to the above, this only happens in one of them. What's the truth here?

The answer to this is significant in three ways I can think of:

1) For people worried about sodium intake, it makes a difference in the calculation for people taking large amounts of sodium ascorbate (see point 3 below). Although Dr. Levy says the problem is really that of sodium chloride, there may be sensitive people who retain water and raise blood pressure on sodium ascorbate also

2) If there is only one sodium, that means there is still an OH group to release an H+ ion, so there is still some acidity in the sodium ascorbate, and it is not "non-acidic vitamin C" but only "relatively acidic.

3) It changes the calculation of exactly how much vitamin C is actually taken. if there is one sodium, so 12% of the total weight is sodium, while of there are 2 sodiums, the sodium is 21% of the weight.

Any help with this is appreciated.

Hi Dolev,

I have never seen sodium ascorbate's molecular formula listed with anything but one sodium atom, e.g. NaC6H7O6 or C6H7NaO6, i.e. with only one of the hydrogen atoms [from the ascorbic acid molecule (C6H8O6)] replaced with a sodium atom.

According to the article listed here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_ascorbate the pH of sodium ascorbate is 7.4 to 7.7. The reality is, however, that the actual pH of a sodium ascorbate solution depends upon how much sodium bicarbonate or sodium hydroxide is mixed with it, i.e. sodium ascorbate [per se] is typically administered by mixing it in/with water, so its pH would then be dependant on the pH [and amount] of the water [and the amount of bicarbonate or hydroxide] used.

Not being a chemist, I am unable to understand any [pH] intricacies beyond that.

I hope this helps,

David

Thanks Owen,

According to this, the sodium is 13%, so there is only one sodium. That agrees with Wikipedia, David and other products I've seen. So I will conclusively accept that sodium ascorbate has one sodium atom, not two.

I just checked Wiki and found that, similarly, calcium ascorbate has only one calcium, not two. That makes it only half as dangerous as I thought, and I must send out a correction about an article I wrote.

Thanks to all,
Dolev