Acetic anhydride

Acetic anhydride is a carboxylic acid anhydride commonly used for the acetylation of amines and alcohols. It undergoes exothermic reaction on addition of water to form acetic acid. The photodecomposition of acetic anhydride has been studied over the temperature range from 60-160°C. The impact of treating pine wood with acetic anhydride has been investigated to evaluate the toughness of pine wood.

Acetic anhydride has been used in the preparation of 6-dimethylamino-2,3-naphthalenedicarboxylic anhydride. It has also been used to generate acetate ions during high resolution chemical ionization mass spectrometry (CI-ToFMS) analysis.