This substance is very common in everyday life, however, perhaps, only among individuals, connoisseurs of chemistry, there is an associative connection with its usual and traditional “manifestations” that we use in everyday life.
First of all, ammonium carbonate is a well-known additive on all food labels E503. It has a synthetic structure, and, as stated, its level of danger to human health is zero. However, recently this information has been called into question by some studies of chemists.
In the food industry, this substance is mainly used as a baking powder or emulsifier.
Consider some chemical aspects of the preparation, properties and uses of this compound. As they said, we know it best of all by writing on the labels as "additive E503", this is the ammonium carbonate of interest to us. This is the ammonium salt of carbonic acid, and here is another well-known name for this substance - ammonia. In the initial state, it appears to be colorless crystals, which are very easily soluble in aqueous solutions. The chemical molecular formula is: (NH4) 2CO3. According to the physical properties, ammonium carbonate is volatile, that is, it is an unstable compound. For example, even at room temperature and air access, the substance begins to oxidize during the reaction, which produces ammonia gas, and the initial compound itself is converted to ammonium bicarbonate. Gaseous ammonia is toxic. With an increase in the temperature of the medium in which the compound is located up to 60 ° C, it already decomposes into ordinary water, the known gas is ammonia and carbon dioxide.
This is the very evolution of gases during the course of the reaction that determines the use of the substance ammonium carbonate as a food additive E503 in industrial production, primarily in the confectionery. It is also widely used in bakery as a substitute for yeast.
At modern chemical industry enterprises, the production of a substance is associated with heating mixtures of ammonium chloride. The synthesis reaction inverse to decomposition is also used, while the composition is not heated, but, on the contrary, is rapidly cooled. Initially, ammonium carbonate, which was obtained exclusively from organics - cattle horns, hair, was considered as a substance that can be produced only at very high temperatures.
As noted above, some modern studies have begun to classify the substance as dangerous. This assignment is associated precisely with the toxicity of gaseous ammonia. You can easily figure this out if you carefully analyze the composition of ammonium carbonate, the interaction with the acid and those substances that are formed as a result of this reaction. So, in its course carbon dioxide and ammonia are formed, but ammonia, as they said, immediately evaporates, like carbon dioxide. As a result, only water remains. Therefore, the addition of E503 can be considered dangerous for a person and his health only with a certain reservation - it can be harmful only if it is in its original state.
Therefore, the use of this compound in the form of a dietary supplement is permitted almost universally throughout the world. As a certification conclusion, data from FSA, the UK state standardization agency, are used here.
Therefore, the use of additives is so common. In addition to the segments of use already indicated, this substance is used, for example, in pharmaceutical production in the manufacture of various syrups, naturally, ammonia and other drugs. It is also used in the manufacture of wines as an accelerator of fermentation, and also, especially recently, as a dye in cosmetics.