X-ray Rietveld structure determination of ammonium Rochelle salt at 120 (paraelectric phase) and 100 K (ferroelectric phase)

Interplay between hydrogen bonding and metal coordination in alkali metal tartrates and hydrogen tartrates

The aggregation of tartaric acid anions in the solid state is based on a small set of standard O–H⋯O bond motifs.

On wine, chirality and crystallography

As the first centennial of X-ray diffraction is inevitably drawing closer, it is tempting to reflect on the impact that this fascinating discipline has had on natural sciences and how it has changed the world we live in. Also, next year is the 160th anniversary of the fateful April afternoon when Louis Pasteur separated D- from L-tartrate crystals, an event that many science historians recognize as the birth of stereochemistry, and the first step that the barely nascent field of crystallography took on the road to elucidate a fundamental phenomenon of chemistry and biology – chirality. Many great minds – Pasteur, Van 't Hoff, Fischer, Lord Kelvin, the Braggs, Astbury and Bijvoet, to mention just a few – contributed along the way. But one central inanimate character was there at all times – an inconspicuous somewhat obscure organic compound found in wine: tartaric acid. This is the story of its contribution to science.