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palmitic acid

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EntityQ209727· pop 57· linked from 524 articles

palmitic acid

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Also known as cetylic acid, n-hexadecoic acid, hexadecoic acid, n-hexadecanoic acid, 1-hexyldecanoic acid, C16 fatty acid, pentadecanecarboxylic acid, 1-pentadecanecarboxylic acid

chemical compound

OverviewAI-generated

Palmitic acid is a chemical compound with the formula C₁₆H₃₂O₂. Its IUPAC name is hexadecanoate;hydron, and it has a canonical SMILES representation of CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC(=O)O. The substance possesses a mass of 256.24 and a density of 0.8527. It exhibits a melting point of 62.49 and a boiling point of 351.5. The flash point is 192, while the refractive index is 1.43345.

Physical properties include a solubility of 0.0072 and a water/octanol partition coefficient of 7.17. The molecule contains one hydrogen bond donor and two hydrogen bond acceptors, with a topological polar surface area of 40.1. It carries a charge of 0. Associated MCN codes are 2915.70.11 and 2936.21.13.

Literature references for palmitic acid number 22086. The subject is referenced by 524 other encyclopedia articles.

Synthesized by Vinony from 23 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
C16H32O2
Molecular weight
256.42 g/mol
IUPAC name
hexadecanoate;hydron
SMILES
[H+].CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC(=O)[O-]
InChIKey
IPCSVZSSVZVIGE-UHFFFAOYSA-N
Polar surface area
40.1 Ų
H-bond donors
1
H-bond acceptors
2
Formal charge
0

via PubChem

Research

22,086 papers

via PubMed

~5 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Palmitic acid (hexadecanoic acid in IUPAC nomenclature) is a fatty acid with a 16-carbon chain. It is the most common saturated fatty acid found in animals, plants and microorganisms. Its chemical formula is CH3(CH2)14COOH, and its C:D ratio (the total number of carbon atoms to the number of carbon-carbon double bonds) is 16:0. It is a major component of palm oil from the fruit of Elaeis guineensis (oil palms), making up to 44% of total fats. Meats, cheeses, butter, and other dairy products also contain palmitic acid, amounting to 50–60% of total fats.

Palmitates are the salts and esters of palmitic acid. The palmitate anion is the observed form of palmitic acid at physiologic pH (7.4). Major sources of C16:0 are palm oil, palm kernel oil, coconut oil, and milk fat.

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

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