Application Area

Sodium citrate is used as flavoring agent and stabilizer in food and beverage industry, as anticoagulant, phlegm-resolving agent and diuretic agent in medicine industry, as assistant of non-toxic detergent instead of sodium tripolyphosphate in detergent industry, as chelating agent/complexing agent in chemistry, and as application of sodium citrate in industry, this characteristic is utilized. It is also used in brewing, injection, photographic medicine and electroplating.

Sodium citrate is the most important citrate at present. It is mainly produced by fermentation of starch to produce citric acid, which is neutralized by alkali. It has the following excellent properties: (1) safety and non-toxicity. Because the raw material of sodium citrate is basically from grain, it is absolutely safe and reliable, and will not harm human health. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization have no restrictions on their daily intake, which can be considered as non-toxic. (2) It is biodegradable. Sodium citrate, diluted by a large amount of water in nature, partially turns into citric acid, which coexists in the same system. Citric acid is easily biodegraded by oxygen, heat, light, bacteria and microorganisms in water. Its decomposition pathway is generally through aconitic acid, itaconic acid, citric anhydride, into carbon dioxide and water. (3) It has the ability of complexing metal ions. Sodium citrate has good complexation ability with Ca2+, Mg2+ and other metal ions, such as Fe2+ plasma. (4) Excellent solubility, and solubility increases with the increase of water temperature. (5) It has good pH regulation and buffer performance. Sodium citrate is a kind of weak acid and strong alkali salt. It can form a strong pH buffer when mixed with citric acid. Therefore, it has important use in some occasions where it is not suitable for a wide range of changes in pH. In addition, sodium citrate has excellent retarding property and stability.

Folding Food Application

China's "Hygienic Standards for the Use of Food Additives" (GB2760-2014) stipulates that the amount of food additives used depends on the normal production needs.

Sodium citrate used in refreshing drinks can relieve acidity and improve taste. The addition of sodium citrate in the brewing process can promote saccharification, the dosage is about 0.3%. Sodium citrate can be used as emulsifier and stabilizer in ice cream and ice cream production, the dosage is 0.2%~0.3%. This product can also be used as anti-rancidity agent for dairy products, tackifier for processed cheese and fish products, and sweetener for food.

Sodium citrate has many excellent properties, which makes it have a very wide range of applications. Sodium citrate is non-toxic, pH-regulated and stable, so it can be used in food industry. Sodium citrate is used as food additive with the largest demand. It is mainly used as flavoring agent, buffer, emulsifier, expander, stabilizer and preservative. In addition, sodium citrate is compatible with citric acid and used as gelling agent, nutritional supplement and flavoring agent for various jams, jellies, juices, beverages, cold drinks, dairy products and pastries.

Folding medicine application

Sodium citrate is also widely used in medicine. It can be used as an anticoagulant and blood transfusion agent to preserve and process blood products. Sodium citrate is used as a preservative to preserve syrup and other medicines. Sodium citrate injection, like potassium salt, is used to correct acidity of blood, body fluid and urine as diuretics and phlegm eliminating agents. Sodium citrate combined with other reagents can be used to extract and purify animal liver ribonucleic acid.

Application of Folding Chemical Industry

Sodium citrate has good water solubility, excellent chelating ability to Ca2+, Mg2+ ions in water, biodegradability, dispersibility and strong anti-redeposition ability, so it is gradually becoming a substitute for sodium tripolyphosphate and used to produce phosphate-free laundry detergent, especially phosphate-free liquid detergent. Adding a certain amount of sodium citrate to the detergent can obviously increase the decontamination ability of the detergent.

Sodium tripolyphosphate is an important discovery in the synthetic detergent industry, which is widely used in detergents as detergent aids. However, with the discharge of washing wastewater into rivers and lakes, phosphate causes eutrophication of water quality, promotes the rapid propagation of algae, water hypoxia, endangers the survival of aquatic animals, and thus becomes a major environmental problem. Since the 1970s, developed countries such as Europe and the United States have put forward the problem of phosphorus limitation of detergent, and have made regulations on its content successively. In China, due to various reasons, especially the price factor, the above problems have not been paid enough attention in the past. With the rapid development of detergent industry and the deterioration of water quality, detergent industry is also developing towards the direction of low phosphating and non-phosphating.

The liquid detergent containing sodium citrate has excellent detergent performance, so a variety of special detergents have been developed at home and abroad. The liquid detergent containing sodium citrate also has other excellent properties, such as some special detergents containing sodium citrate are non-corrosive to some metal appliances, so they can be specially used to clean precious precision instruments; some special detergents containing sodium citrate clean appliances, the metal surface is bright as new, and the waste liquid after cleaning can be recycled and reused after treatment, which reduces washing. Polyester cost. It has been reported that in order to solve the problem of pesticide residues in vegetables and fruits, experts have developed a special cleaning agent for pesticide residues in vegetables and fruits containing sodium citrate.

Sodium citrate is widely used in electroplating industry because of its excellent complexing property. In construction industry, sodium citrate can be added to concrete as retarder to improve the resistance of cement products.