Dear Sir , Interesting article about the use of organic acids in in animal nutrition and the use of potassium diformate. Most of the article were discussing about combination of acids will give better results than ingle acids -Please give comment on this . PWhat is the imprtance of pKa value of organic acid ? how to calculate the pKa vaule for product having mixer of organic acids.
Dear Dr. Chandran, in fact, the article you mentioned focuses on the use of potassium diformate in pig nutrition. This compound has received the status of "zootechnical additive" in Europe - it means it can promote the performance of piglets, fatteners and sows (weight gain and feed efficiency). No acid blend has this official status in Europe! So it is clear that this acid salt achieved better results than available acid blends. pKa value is the pH-value at which the acid is 50% dissociated and 50% undissociated. Undissociated organic acids are able to enter through the membrane of gram-negative bacteria, such as E.coli, Salmonella and Campylobacter. However, you cannot explain the overall effect of an acid just with the pKa-value. To my opionion the "strength2 of an acid is described by a pool of factors.... molecular size, chain length, pKa, thermal stability, volatility etc. For a blend of acids there is no single pKa-level; you need to use the different pKa-levels from the different acids in the blend.