Basic Physical & Chemical Properties of Glycine
Glycine presents as white crystal or crystalline powder with no peculiar odor and a unique mild sweet taste. It boasts excellent water solubility, which enables easy dissolution and uniform mixing in aqueous solutions for various formulation scenarios. As the simplest proteinogenic amino acid, its special molecular structure endows it with high chemical stability and strong compatibility, allowing it to cooperate with various raw materials without adverse reactions.
Core product specifications are standardized and reliable: Chemical Name: Aminoacetic Acid; Molecular Formula: C2H5NO2; Molecular Weight: 75.06; CAS Registry Number: 56-40-6. These precise parameters guarantee consistent quality and stable performance for industrial production and commercial application.
Core Applications of Glycine Across Industries
1. Food Industry: Natural Flavor Enhancer & Nutrient Fortifier
Glycine is a safe and high-efficiency food additive approved by global food safety authorities. With a soft sweet taste (about 70% sweetness of sucrose) and low calorie characteristics, it is widely used as a natural flavor regulator to improve food taste, mask bitter and astringent flavors, and enhance the overall flavor layering of products. It is commonly added to beverages, condiments, canned foods, and snack products. Meanwhile, glycine can supplement essential amino acids for human body, fortify food nutrition, and effectively improve the nutritional value of daily food products.
2. Feed Industry: Premium Nutritional Supplement
In animal husbandry and aquaculture, glycine acts as a key feed nutritional additive. It participates in animal protein synthesis and metabolic regulation, effectively promoting the growth and development of livestock, poultry and aquatic animals. Additionally, glycine can improve feed palatability, increase animal feed intake, and enhance the immunity and anti-stress ability of breeding animals. It also helps reduce feed waste and improve breeding economic benefits, making it an indispensable additive in modern precision breeding industry.
3. Pharmaceutical Industry: High-Value Medical Intermediate & Functional Raw Material
Glycine has extensive and important applications in the pharmaceutical field. It is a core raw material for synthesizing various drugs, used as a medical intermediate, drug solvent and buffer ingredient for antibiotics and neurological medications. Biologically, glycine participates in glutathione synthesis and liver metabolism, supporting human detoxification and physiological regulation. Moreover, it helps regulate human nervous system, relieve emotional tension, and assist in improving sleep quality, which makes it widely applied in health care products and adjuvant therapeutic drugs.
4. Fine Chemical & Daily Chemical Industry
Glycine serves as a critical intermediate raw material in the fine chemical and daily chemical industries. It is widely applied in the production of surfactants, industrial detergent additives, hair dye raw materials, and pesticide intermediates. With stable chemical activity and strong compatibility, it effectively improves product performance and finished product quality, demonstrating high industrial applicability and long-term economic value.
5. Fertilizer Industry: Efficient Plant Growth Promoter & Soil Conditioner
Glycine has become a popular functional additive for amino acid fertilizers and water-soluble fertilizers, widely used in modern precision agriculture. As a bioavailable organic amino acid, it can be directly absorbed and utilized by crop roots, leaves and stems, significantly improving nutrient absorption efficiency compared with traditional single fertilizers. It effectively promotes seed germination, seedling growth, and crop root development, strengthens plant vigor, and increases crop yield and quality for fruits, vegetables, grains and cash crops.
In addition, glycine can optimize soil microenvironment, improve soil permeability and nutrient retention capacity, alleviate soil salinization and hardening caused by long-term fertilization. It also enhances crop stress resistance, helping plants resist drought, low temperature and pest damage. Moreover, it works synergistically with nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other trace elements in fertilizers, improving fertilizer utilization rate, reducing fertilizer waste and agricultural pollution, and is an eco-friendly, high-efficiency functional raw material for green agricultural planting.
Widely recognized as a green and efficient agricultural additive, glycine perfectly matches the development trend of modern ecological agriculture and precision planting, occupying an indispensable position in the upgrading of high-efficiency and environmentally friendly fertilizer products.
Why Choose High-Purity Glycine (CAS 56-40-6)?
High-quality glycine features high purity, stable properties, excellent water solubility and zero peculiar smell, fully complying with international food grade, feed grade, pharmaceutical grade and agricultural fertilizer grade standards. Its pure composition ensures no impurity interference in production and application, effectively guaranteeing the safety and stability of downstream products. Whether for food flavor adjustment, feed nutrition enhancement, pharmaceutical raw material preparation or agricultural fertilizer processing, premium glycine can deliver consistent and reliable application effects.
Final Words
As a multifunctional amino acid with mature technology and wide coverage, Glycine (C2H5NO2, CAS 56-40-6) has penetrated food, feed, pharmaceutical, chemical and modern agricultural fertilizer industries relying on its superior physical and chemical properties and rich functional values. From daily food seasoning and feed nutrition supplementation to high-end pharmaceutical synthesis, industrial manufacturing and green agricultural planting, it remains an essential and cost-effective raw material. With the continuous development of food processing, modern breeding, biopharmaceutical and ecological agriculture industries, the market demand for high-purity glycine will keep growing, bringing broad application prospects and commercial value.
Practical Application Cases of Glycine in Fertilizer & Agricultural Planting
Case 1: Orchard & Vineyard Quality Improvement (High-Value Cash Crops) In commercial organic vineyard planting, glycine-enriched organic phosphorus fertilizer has achieved remarkable economic benefits. Field trials show that applying glycine-based fertilizer increases grape yield by 9.8% and raises resveratrol content by 32%. The optimized fruit quality and nutritional value help wine products gain a 28% market premium, fully proving glycine's ability to boost crop yield and improve agricultural product added value.
Case 2: Large-Scale Field Crop Fertilization (Grain & Cash Crops) In large-scale arable land promotion in Heilongjiang reclamation area, China, glycine chelated iron and zinc compound fertilizer has been popularized on11.2 million mu of farmland. The standardized dosage of 185g glycine chelated trace elements per mu effectively solves the problems of soil trace element deficiency and low fertilizer utilization rate. It improves crop cold resistance and stress resistance in high-latitude cold regions, stabilizes grain yield, and realizes standardized and large-scale green planting.
Case 3: Greenhouse Fruit & Vegetable Planting (Strawberry & Solanaceous Crops) For high-value greenhouse strawberries, targeted glycine fertilizer application achieves significant quality improvement. Spraying 40g glycine combined with boron fertilizer per mu during the flower bud differentiation period increases the fruit setting rate by about 20%. During the fruit color transition period, 80g glycine mixed with high-phosphorus and high-potassium fertilizer effectively avoids green-head fruits and uneven coloring, increases fruit sugar content by 1–2 degrees, and greatly improves commodity rate. For tomatoes and peppers, 200–300ppm glycine foliar spraying during the flowering stage optimizes flower and fruit retention and reduces flower and fruit dropping.
Case 4: Soil Improvement & Trace Element Activation (Problem Soil Remediation) For saline-alkali soil and calcareous soil with severe nutrient fixation, glycine shows excellent chelating and soil conditioning effects. The zinc-glycine complex fertilizer can increase crop zinc absorption efficiency by 1.5 times compared with traditional inorganic zinc fertilizer. It effectively relieves soil hardening and salinization caused by long-term chemical fertilizer use, activates solidified soil nutrients, reduces fertilizer leaching waste, and lowers agricultural non-point source pollution, which is suitable for continuous cropping obstacle fields and degraded farmland remediation.
Case 5: Leafy Vegetable Quality & Safety Upgrade In leafy vegetable planting such as pakchoi and lettuce, glycine fertilizer replacement and compound application significantly improve crop quality. Test data shows that glycine treatment increases vegetable biomass by up to 32%, raises soluble sugar content greatly, and reduces nitrate content by more than 50%. It realizes low-nitrate, green and pollution-free vegetable production, meeting the high-standard planting requirements of organic agriculture and green food.
Frequently Asked Questions About Glycine
Q1: What is glycine used for in fertilizer? A: Glycine is a high-efficiency green additive for amino acid fertilizers and water-soluble fertilizers. It acts as a natural chelating agent to improve the absorption and utilization rate of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and trace elements. It also promotes crop root growth, boosts yield, improves fruit quality, enhances plant stress resistance, and repairs hardened and saline-alkali soil, widely used in organic and precision agriculture.
Q2: Is glycine fertilizer safe for organic farming? A: Yes. Glycine is a natural, biodegradable and residue-free amino acid. It fully complies with EU organic farming standards and international green agricultural regulations. It is widely applied in organic vegetable bases, vineyards, orchards and export crop planting without causing chemical residue pollution.
Q3: How does glycine improve fertilizer efficiency? A: Traditional inorganic fertilizers are easily fixed and lost in the soil. Glycine can chelate medium and trace elements to form stable and easily absorbable organic complexes, which can be directly absorbed by crop roots and leaves. It effectively reduces fertilizer waste, increases fertilizer utilization rate by 20%-50%, and lowers agricultural planting costs.
Q4: Can glycine help improve poor soil conditions? A: Absolutely. Long-term single chemical fertilizer application leads to soil hardening, salinization and nutrient imbalance. Glycine can optimize soil microecology, improve soil air permeability and water retention capacity, activate solidified soil nutrients, and gradually restore degraded saline-alkali land, making it an ideal soil remediation raw material.
Q5: What crops are suitable for glycine fertilizer application? A: Glycine fertilizer fits almost all crops. It works excellently for high-value cash crops such as grapes, citrus, strawberries, tomatoes and greenhouse vegetables, as well as field crops including wheat, corn and rice. It can significantly improve crop yield and commodity value.
Q6: Is industrial glycine the same as agricultural grade glycine? A: No. Agricultural grade glycine features high purity, low impurity content and better water solubility, which is specially refined for fertilizer processing and crop planting. It is safer, more stable and more suitable for agricultural production than ordinary industrial grade glycine.
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