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carbonic acid

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EntityQ104334· pop 74· linked from 528 articles

carbonic acid

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Also known as H2CO3, [CO(OH)2], acid of air, aerial acid

chemical compound

OverviewAI-generated

Carbonic acid is a chemical compound with the formula H₂CO₃, also represented as CH2O3. Its IUPAC name is carbonic acid, and it has a mass of 62.025. The compound features a canonical SMILES notation of C(=O)(O)O and a pKa of 6.37. It possesses a density of 1.668 and a standard enthalpy of formation of -700.

Structural properties include an xlogp of -0.1, a topological polar surface area of 57.5, and a charge of 0. The molecule contains two hydrogen bond donors and three hydrogen bond acceptors. In scientific literature, carbonic acid is the subject of 51,603 PubMed entries. Additionally, the topic is referenced by 528 other encyclopedia articles.

Synthesized by Vinony from 21 facts across 4 sources: Wikidata, PubChem, PubMed, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Chemical data

Formula
CH2O3
Molecular weight
62.025 g/mol
IUPAC name
carbonic acid
SMILES
C(=O)(O)O
InChIKey
BVKZGUZCCUSVTD-UHFFFAOYSA-N
XLogP
-0.1
Polar surface area
57.5 Ų
H-bond donors
2
H-bond acceptors
3
Formal charge
0

via PubChem

Research

51,603 papers

via PubMed

~9 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Carbonic acid is a chemical compound with the chemical formula H2CO3. The molecule rapidly converts to water and carbon dioxide in the presence of water. In contrast to early-twentieth century textbooks, numerous studies conducted since ca. 1990 identified H2CO3 as a real molecule with a distinct Raman spectrum and with a first-order life-time of ca. 20 ms at 37 °C. Solid anhydrous carbonic acid has also been isolated.

The interconversion of carbon dioxide and carbonic acid is related to the breathing process of all aerobic organisms and to the acidification of natural waters.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “carbonic acid” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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