Sodium benzoate

Sprite’s ingredients are: Carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, natural flavors, sodium citrate, sodium benzoate

Not long ago, I did a post about how ingredients in coke can be potentially dangerous, today I decided to look further into the ingredient in fizzy drinks and I discovered Sodium Benzonate. 

After some research I found out that it isn’t only found in coke but in most soft drinks and I even found it in orange juice and vinegar, so today, I’m going to look deeper into this compound.

Sodium Benzonate is a type of salt that may occur naturally in some foods but is more likely to be chemically produced and added as a preservative to foods. It is widely used as a food preservative (E number E211) for acidic foods as it has an acidic taste itself, especially in foods such as salad dressings carbonated drinks, jams and fruit juices and pickles. This product is always used in very small amounts as too much of it will bring a bitter taste to the product. It is also used as a preservative in medicines and cosmetics.

It’s chemical formulae is NaC₆H₅CO₂; it is basically formed when reacting sodium hydroxide with benzoic acid. As the name indicates, sodium benzonate is an acid when found in an aqueous solution and it is bacteriostatic and fungistatic under acidic conditions. 

So now you know from where that acidic taste comes from is soft drinks. Statistics show though, that although 75% of humans can eventually detect the taste, most of us don’t notice it anymore as we are used to drinking soft drinks on a regular basis, but next time you drink a fizzy drink, try to distinguish the flavor.

Make Benzoic acid and Manganese Dioxide from Toluene