Acetate

An acetate is a salt formed by the combination of acetic acid with a base (e.g. alkaline, earthy, metallic, nonmetallic or radical base). "Acetate" also describes the conjugate base or ion (specifically, the negatively charged ion called an anion) typically found in aqueous solution and written with the chemical formula C2H3O2-. The neutral molecules formed by the combination of the acetate ion and a positive ion (called a cation) are also commonly called "acetates" (hence, acetate of lead, acetate of aluminium, etc.). The simplest of these is hydrogen acetate (called acetic acid) with corresponding salts, esters, and the polyatomic anion CH3CO2-, or CH3COO-. Most of the approximately 5 million tonnes of acetic acid produced annually in industry are used in the production of acetates, which usually take the form of polymers. In nature, acetate is the most common building block for biosynthesis. When part of a salt, the formula of the acetate ion is written as CH3CO2-, C2H3O2-, or CH3COO-. Chemists often represent acetate as OAc− or, less commonly, AcO−. Thus, HOAc is the symbol for acetic acid, NaOAc for sodium acetate, and EtOAc for ethyl acetate (as Ac is common symbol for acetyl group CH3CO).The pseudoelement symbol "Ac" is also sometimes encountered in chemical formulas as indicating the entire acetate ion (CH3CO2-). It is not to be confused with the symbol of actinium, the first element of the actinide series; context guides disambiguation. For example, the formula for sodium acetate might be abbreviated as "NaOAc", rather than "NaC2H3O2". Care should also be taken to avoid confusion with peracetic acid when using the OAc abbreviation; for clarity and to avoid errors when translated, HOAc should be avoided in literature mentioning both compounds. Although its systematic name is ethanoate (ᵻˈθænoʊ.eɪt), the common acetate remains the preferred IUPAC name. The acetate anion, [CH3COO]−,(or [C2H3O2]−) is one of the carboxylate family. It is the conjugate base of acetic acid. Above a pH of 5.