Page 19 - The Biochemistry of Inorganic Polyphosphates

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THE CHEMICAL

STRUCTURES AND

PROPERTIES OF

CONDENSED INORGANIC

PHOSPHATES

For a proper understanding of the processes which take place in living organisms, a precise
knowledge of the chemical structures of the compounds that participate in these processes
is required. It is therefore deemed essential to present, even if only briefly, an account of
present-day ideas of the chemical structures of condensed phosphates, hitherto often known
by the long-obsolete terms ‘metaphosphates’ and ‘hexametaphosphates’.

1.1 The Structures of Condensed Phosphates

The first mention of condensed inorganic phosphates dates back to 1816, when Berzelius
showed that the vitreous product formed by the ignition of orthophosphoric acid was able
to precipitate proteins (Van Wazer, 1958). Graham (1833) described a vitreous phosphate
which he obtained by fusion of NaH 2 PO 4 . Believing that he had isolated a pure compound
with the formula NaPO 3 , Graham named this as a ‘metaphosphate’. Shortly afterwards,
however, Fleitmann and Hennenberg (1848), working in Liebig’s laboratory, demonstrated
that the ‘metaphosphates’ having the general formula MPO 3 (where M is hydrogen or a
monovalent metal) were mixtures of closely related compounds which differed mainly in
their degree of polymerization. The numerous investigations which were carried out over
the next 100 years (for reviews, see: Ebel, 1951; Karbe and Jander, 1942; Teichert and
Rinnmann, 1948; Topley, 1949; Van Wazer, 1958), although they provided a wealth of new

The Biochemistry of Inorganic Polyphosphates I. S. Kulaev, V. M. Vagabov and T. V. Kulakovskaya
C 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd ISBN: 0-470-85810-9

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