Pyrosulfate

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A chemical compound formed from sulfuric acid and a sulfate that contains a pyrosulfate ion in its structure
2. It serves various roles in biochemical processes depending on its reactivity and application
3. A variant of sulfate characterized by its unique pyrosulfate grouping which influences its chemical properties and uses

Etymology: Pyrosulfate is a compound of "pyro-", from Greek "pyr" meaning fire, and "sulfate." The Greek prefix was adopted in chemistry to mean heat-produced or anhydrous forms of a compound: a pyro-acid is what results when a related acid loses water through heating. Pyrosulfuric acid, the parent of pyrosulfates, is formed by heating sulfuric acid or by adding sulfur trioxide to it, so the name records a preparation by heat. The "-ate" ending comes from the chemical naming system developed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when salts of oxygen acids were named by swapping "-ic" for "-ate." "Sulfate" itself traces to Latin "sulphur," the element's classical name, which English chemists later respelled as "sulfur" in the American style. Pyrosulfate, like many chemical coinages of that era, is a modern construction assembled from classical building blocks rather than a word that existed in antiquity.

Synonyms: disulfate, pyrosulphate