| Product Name | Gallic Acid |
| Synonyms | 3,4,5-Trihydroxybenzoic acid; Pyrogallol-5-carboxylic acid; Gallic Acid Anhydrous; Gallic acid(anhydrous) |
| Molecular Formula | C7H6O5 |
| Molecular Weight | 170.1195 |
| CAS Registry Number | 149-91-7 |
| Molecular Structure | |
| Product Application | Can be used as a preservative. Pyrogallic acid, pharmaceuticals, inks, mordant dyes and anti-explosion agents can be prepared. They are also used as developers and Analytical reagents for the detection of free mineral acids, dihydroxyacetone, alkaloids and metals. |
Every sourcing manager we talk to asks the same first question: how do I know this batch matches the spec sheet? Gallic acid, listed under CAS 149-91-7, is a naturally occurring phenolic compound you'll see described chemically as 3,4,5-trihydroxybenzoic acid. The molecular formula reads C7H6O5, and when you open a drum of pharmaceutical-grade material, you should find white to off-white needle-like crystals. Check the density at 1.694 g/cm³ — if the supplier's CoA deviates here, you are likely dealing with residual moisture from incomplete drying.
Why do factories keep reordering this compound year after year? Because few molecules do so many different jobs in one plant. The same shipment can feed into a sulfonamide production line, then get tapped for a food preservative run. We're seeing procurement teams in Southeast Asia consolidate their buys specifically because anhydrous gallic acid covers such a wide formulation range, from blue-black ink color-formers to anti-explosion intermediates.
The numbers you actually care about: put this material in a DSC run, and it starts coming apart around 251 °C. That means your line operators can push processing temperatures well past what most organic intermediates handle, without the compound giving up. The flash point sits at 271 °C — in practical terms, direct flame exposure is what you guard against, not the heat from a typical jacketed reactor. A Vietnam-based dye manufacturer told us last quarter how switching to high-purity material cut their batch failure rate by 38%, purely because the compound didn't degrade mid-cycle.
Here's where we see the most processing upset: solubility. The spec says 12 grams per liter in cold water. But if your operator adds that whole amount at once around a stir vortex, the result looks like frogspawn in your reactor. Our lab data backs up a simple method: pre-wet at 3–4 g/L in lukewarm water before making the tank up to volume. For folks running a monohydrate form, solubility edges a touch higher, though the anhydrous form still pulls in most ink and API buyers for its tighter control over stoichiometry in exothermic reactions.
Trimethoprim (TMP) doesn't get made without a reliable gallic acid feed. The same goes for compounding units running SMZ or SD with trimethoprim: your blend targets fall apart if the starting material purity wanders outside 99%-plus territory. And since COVID-era supply chains snapped, smart teams in HCMC and Hyderabad are now prequalifying two sources instead of holding a single-supplier relationship. They store and sample precisely because a TMP line standing idle for a sourcing lead time eats $18,000–$22,000 a day in downtime costs on a mid-capacity line.
Propyl gallate flows from gallic acid and isopropyl alcohol through a well-established esterification route, and the end product goes straight into edible oil stabilization. Our technical contacts at a Thai coconut milk processor switched to propyl gallate derived from this particular tree-extract feed (rather than petroleum route) and recorded a shelf-life extension of 4.7 months under ambient tropical storage. For brands selling into EU retailers that demand clean-label claims, the chain-of-custody documents showing your propyl gallate starts right here hold weight.
Blue-black gall ink sounds medieval, but the market is steady. A European stationery supplier buys anhydrous gallic acid to grind with ferrous sulfate and gum arabic, producing what the manufacturer calls "soft carbon tones" you can't get from direct-synthesis dyes—no substitute compound matches it on absorbency. Meanwhile, the defense side needs gallic acid as a critical ingredient in certain anti-explosion agents. These buyers don't chase. They qualify compliance and then give you the supplier score based on paperwork accuracy and delivery precision—because safety sign-offs depend on them.
In polarography, gallic acid serves as a V-W polarizing depolarization agent, shaving noise off analysis that would otherwise mask low-ppm detection limits. Academic labs and private QC units burn through maybe 50–100 g a month, but aggregated in multi-site contracts with international research institutions, that adds up to a steady one-year contract close on a single approved product line.
Analysts tracking gallic acid market value put 2025 numbers around $219 million, and the projected push toward $395 million by 2034 looks conservative in a lot of us—driven by clean-label demand and Asia-Pacific capacity growth. Right now, APAC commands roughly 42% of global volume, and that's no curiosity; Chinese and Indian producers have made the dosing infrastructure and distribution cost-competitive on ocean-freight batches destined for the U.S. and Europe. On the regulatory side, FDA GRAS status rules and REACH registration remain as non-negotiable filters: if your supplier doesn't submit the updated registration number for EU shipments, sliding in at Dutch and German ports starts to look like a coin flip.
Close the dock door and remember three words: cold, ventilated, dry. A Midwestern distributor had one whole roof amber gallic acid clumped into bricks because pallets sat in a humid area during a warehouse fan failure—no recall raise, just a full write-off. Storing sealed in fiber drums at temps down below 25 °C with spaced air flow—they've since verified—holds. Other humidity reject rates at zero for 18 months. Before signing off on a specification, verify the container liners and desicant strategy any supplier touts on their certificate-of-analysis—the details you get the paperwork, but the moisture you get the product.
Whether your deadline is hitting a TMP production order or securing shelf-stable edible oil preservation for 2026, a gallic acid supply must own consistent purity and batch-trace documentation. The suppliers who get the volumes don't lead with brochures—they sometimes spec numbers with you before the quotation even hits your inbox.
