Laboratory

any room or building that is especially built or equipped for undertaking scientific experiments, research or chemicals manufacture. The study of physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, geology and other subjects usually involves some work in a laboratory and each is equipped with special instruments.

A chemical laboratory typically contains balances for weighing samples, bottles of chemicals including dangerous acids, a vast array of glassware (test tubes, flasks etc.) and bunsen burners. The bunsen burner is a gas burner consisting of a small vertical tube with an adjustable air inlet at the base to control the flame. The flame produced by burning the hydrocarbon gas/air mix has an inner cone where carbon monoxide is formed and an outer fringe where it is burnt. When the gas is burnt completely the flame temperature is very high, around 1450ºC. The burner was invented by Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, a German scientist.

Taken from Dictionary of Science

Tartaric Acid

an organic acid which exists in four forms that are STEREOISOMERS. The commonest form (d-tartaric acid) is used in dyeing, the manufacture of baking powder and "health salts". Another form (dl-tartaric acid, or racemic acid) occurs in grapes

Taken from Dictionary of Science

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Tartaric acid is a white crystalline diprotic organic acid. It occurs naturally in many plants, particularly grapes, bananas, and tamarinds, and is one of the main acids found in wine. It is added to other foods to give a sour taste, and is used as an antioxidant. Salts of tartaric acid are known as tartrates. It is a dihydroxy derivative of succinic acid.

Tartaric acid was first isolated from potassium tartrate, known to the ancients as tartar, c. 800 by the Persian alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan, who was also responsible for numerous other basic chemical processes still in use today. The modern process was developed in 1769 by the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele. The chirality of tartaric acid was discovered in 1832 by Jean Baptiste Biot, who observed its ability to rotate polarized light. Louis Pasteur continued this research in 1847 by investigating the shapes of ammonium sodium tartrate crystals, which he found to be asymmetric. Pasteur was the first to produce a pure sample of levotartaric acid.

Taken from Wikipedia