==Citric Acid is made from "black mold" NOT Fruit courtesy Pfizer==
Citric Acid does NOT come from fruit & 50% comes from China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citric_acid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspergillus_niger
1 - In 1893, C. Wehmer discovered Penicillium mold could produce citric acid from sugar. However, microbial production of citric acid did not become industrially important until World War I disrupted Italian citrus exports.
2 - In 1917, American food chemist James Currie discovered certain strains of the mold Aspergillus niger could be efficient citric acid producers, and the pharmaceutical company Pfizer began industrial-level production using this technique two years later, followed by Citrique Belge in 1929. In this production technique, which is still the major industrial route to citric acid used today, cultures of A. niger are fed on a sucrose or glucose-containing medium to produce citric acid.
3 - Aspergillus niger is a fungus and one of the most common species of the genus Aspergillus.
4 - It causes a disease called "black mold" on certain fruits and vegetables such as grapes, apricots, onions, and peanuts, and is a common contaminant of food. It is ubiquitous in soil and is commonly reported from indoor environments, where its black colonies can be confused with those of Stachybotrys (species of which have also been called "black mold").[1]
5 - Some strains of A. niger have been reported to ==produce potent mycotoxins called ochratoxins==;[2] other sources disagree, claiming this report is based upon misidentification of the fungal species.[citation needed] Recent evidence suggests some true A. niger strains do produce ochratoxin A.[1][3] It also produces the isoflavone orobol.
6- More than 50% of this volume was produced in China
Citric acid
Citric acid is a weak organic acid that has the molecular formula C6H8O7. It occurs naturally in citrus fruits. In biochemistry, it is an intermediate in the citric acid cycle, which occurs in the metabolism of all aerobic organisms.
More than two million tons of citric acid are manufactured every year. It is used widely as an acidifier, as a flavoring and a chelating agent.[9]
A citrate is a derivative of citric acid; that is, the salts, esters, and the polyatomic anion found in solution. An example of the former, a salt is trisodium citrate; an ester is triethyl citrate. When part of a salt, the formula of the citrate anion is written as C6H5O3−7 or C3H5O(COO)3−3.
Natural occurrence and industrial production
Lemons, oranges, limes, and other citrus fruits possess high concentrations of citric acid
Citric acid exists in a variety of fruits and vegetables, most notably citrus fruits. Lemons and limes have particularly high concentrations of the acid; it can constitute as much as 8% of the dry weight of these fruits (about 47 g/l in the juices[10]).[a] The concentrations of citric acid in citrus fruits range from 0.005 mol/L for oranges and grapefruits to 0.30 mol/L in lemons and limes; these values vary within species depending upon the cultivar and the circumstances in which the fruit was grown.
Citric acid was first isolated in 1784 by the chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who crystallized it from lemon juice.[11][12]
Industrial-scale citric acid production first began in 1890 based on the Italian citrus fruit industry, where the juice was treated with hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide) to precipitate calcium citrate, which was isolated and converted back to the acid using diluted sulfuric acid.[13] In 1893, C. Wehmer discovered Penicillium mold could produce citric acid from sugar. However, microbial production of citric acid did not become industrially important until World War I disrupted Italian citrus exports.