Formic Acid, also known as methanoic acid and hydrogencarboxylic acid, is the simplest the organic acid. It is a colorless, toxic, corrosive liquid with a pungent, penetrating odor. In nature, it is found in the stings and bites of many insects of the order hymenoptera, including bees and ants. The principal use of formic acid is as a preservative and antibacterial agent in livestock feed. The largest single use of formic acid is as a silage additive in Europe, but this market hardly exists in the United States. When sprayed on fresh hay or other silage, it arrests certain decay processes and causes the feed to retain its nutritive value longer. In poultry industry, it is sometimes added to silage to kill salmonella bacteria. It is also used in textile dyeing, leather tanning, as solvent, in electroplating processes, in the manufacturing of lacquers, glass, vinyl resin plasticizers, and formate esters (for flavor and fragrance) and in the manufacture of fumigants. Formic acid is a strong reducing agent, and may act both as an acid and as an aldehyde because the carboxyl is bound to a hydrogen rather than an alkyl group.
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Obtained courtesy of the Cambridge Structural Database
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