Talk:Formic acid

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Good article Formic acid was one of the Natural sciences good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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The historic production of Fromic acid isn't discussed. According to everything I've read, FA is used in rubber production. However, I doubt they were turning over ant-hills to produce the acid to make tons of rubber between 1770-1855... so how were they getting the acid at that point?
~ender 2006-11-17 8:40:AM MST

Contents

[edit] HCO2H

Is it not more normal for a carboxylic acid group to be written out in full i.e. COOH, leaving the formula as HCOOH in the first paragraph?

Yes it is, but that is also correct. Conrad.Irwin 10:19, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Formic Anhydride?

From the article:

"Until very recently, all attempts to form either of these derivatives have resulted in carbon monoxide instead. It has now been shown that the anhydride may be produced by reaction of formyl fluoride with sodium formate at −78°C, and the chloride by passing HCl into a solution of 1-formimidazole in monochloromethane at −60°"

I don't understand how you get anything BUT Carbon Monoxide from removing H2O from Formic Acid, as HCOOH minus HOH equals CO.Joeylawn 20:40, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

HCOOH + HCOOH -> HCOOCOH + H2O. --Itub 10:04, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Distillation of ant bodies?

Distillation is the chemical separation of substances... if scientists distilled ant bodies in order to isolate formic acid, as this article says, does that mean that the scientists literally dissolved ants? --Luigifan 16:18, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

The answer depends on who did the distillation, but the easiest and most obvious way to get the formic acid would be to put the ants directly into the distillation apparatus and start heating. Lots of chemicals were originally isolated in this manner. I think it's easier to synthesize formic acid than to extract it from ants.--Smokefoot 18:19, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA sweeps review

This article was passed in December of 2005, in the early days of the GA program. The Good Article criteria have changed significantly since then, and unfortunately this article no longer meets them. Of critical importance is insufficient reference citations (with only two inline citations, that is not enough for an article of this size). The article reads reasonably well (good prose), and I don't see any major issues. Some of the section headers could be a little more descriptive, like changing 'properties' --> 'chemical properties' (which is more or less the standard that I see with other chemistry articles). 'Production' --> 'synthesis'. The table in the safety section is of rather poor quality -- I think it could be improved by adding border lines.

The article can be renominated at WP:GAN once it meets the GA criteria. Dr. Cash 23:52, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

The style guide for chemicals is in the midst of changes so I would hesitate to comment on the section as yet. Production usually refers to an industrial scale activity, i.e. a few tons, while synthesis would be more appropriate for a few grams or miligrams. The properties section discusses things like polarity and hydrogen bonding, which lead to physical properties like boiling point. So I think that section header is not inaccurate. --Rifleman 82 02:12, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ants and formic acid

As of February 2008, the article only mentions that formic acid is contained in (ant) stings and bites. Do ants themselves use the acid for other purposes, similar to how we preserve livestock feed? — Nahum Reduta [talk|contribs] 19:04, 3 February 2008 (UTC)