Acetic Acid Water
Laboratory Supplies
Available sizes: 3 ml, 10 ml
A mildly acidic reconstitution solvent
Acetic acid water is exactly what the name describes: a dilute solution of acetic acid in sterile water. Its purpose is to provide an acidic environment for peptides whose solubility or stability is poor at neutral pH.
Solubility for a peptide is largely a function of charge, and charge is a function of pH. Moving away from a sequence's isoelectric point increases net charge, and a charged molecule resists the self-association that shows up in a vial as cloudiness or visible precipitate.
When it is preferred
Peptides with a high proportion of hydrophobic residues, which resist going into neutral aqueous solution
Sequences known to aggregate, where the failure mode is a cloudy or gelled preparation
Compounds documented as unstable at neutral pH, where a neutral solvent shortens usable life
Protocols that specify an acidic solvent, where substituting one changes the preparation
Practical notes
Acidic solvent carries into the final preparation, and that matters for anything downstream that is pH-sensitive — cell culture work in particular. Where the acid is needed only to achieve dissolution, a common approach is to dissolve in the minimum acidic volume and bring the preparation to working concentration with a buffer afterwards.
Related supplies
Bacteriostatic Water is the general-purpose default, and Phosphate Buffered Saline the buffered option where ionic strength and a held pH matter.
Documentation and verification
Certificates of Analysis are published for tested products and batches. A certificate is a batch-specific record: it reports what was measured, by which method, on a stated date, against a batch identifier. It is evidence about the sample analysed at the time of analysis, and it is silent on attributes it does not list and on what has happened to the material since.
The batch number is the field that connects the document to a physical vial. Where the identifier on a vial does not appear on a certificate, the certificate does not describe that vial, however thorough the analysis behind it was. Batch records can be searched directly, and the guides below explain what each field establishes and what it does not.
- Verify a batchSearch a batch number for the certificate records published against it.
- How to read a certificate of analysisWhat each field reports, and the limits of what a certificate can establish.
- Certificate, specification and safety data sheetThree documents that answer three different questions.
- Storage and handlingWhat defined storage conditions mean, and why cold slows degradation.
- Batch numbers and traceabilityHow an identifier ties material to the analysis describing it.
Supplied for laboratory research use only. Not for human or veterinary use.