Product Overview
Glacial acetic acid, food grade, is concentrated acetic acid (CAS 64-19-7) — a clear, colorless liquid with a pungent vinegar odor, offered to order in pack sizes from 1 quart through 330-gallon totes. "Glacial" identifies the concentrated form of the acid, as opposed to the diluted vinegar-strength solutions most people know. That concentration is exactly why food processors, beverage producers, and formulators buy it: minimal water in the drum means maximum control over what goes into the final blend.
The Food Grade descriptor matters to a specific buyer. Food and beverage plants, sauce and dressing manufacturers, and processors who adjust pH in production lines commonly specify a food-grade designation in their purchasing paperwork. This page and our documentation give you what you need to run that qualification — and because this is a Class 8 corrosive with a subsidiary flammability hazard, it also needs a supplier who packs and ships regulated liquids correctly. That is our job.
Why This Concentration
Glacial strength is a trade-off you should choose deliberately. On the process side, it gives you a single concentrated input you can dilute to any working strength on site, which keeps freight weight down per unit of acid and avoids paying to ship water. On the handling side, the concentrated acid is corrosive to metals and tissue and carries a flammable-liquid hazard (per the product's GHS classification), so it demands closed transfer practices, compatible containers, and trained handlers.
Pick glacial when your process consumes acetic acid at scale, when your formulation tolerances require controlling water content yourself, or when a recipe calls for the concentrated acid directly. If your team only ever needs dilute working solutions and lacks the equipment to dilute a corrosive concentrate, a pre-diluted strength is usually the more practical purchase — dilution of glacial acid is an exothermic, add-acid-to-water operation that belongs in a controlled setting, not at a prep sink.
Chemical Profile
Acetic acid, glacial appears as a clear colorless liquid with a strong odor of vinegar. It carries the formula C2H4O2 at a molecular weight of 60.05, under CAS 64-19-7. The liquid is denser than water — density 1.051 at 68 °F, roughly 8.8 lb per gallon — so a spilled volume will sink rather than float. It is highly water-miscible, with solubility of 100 mg/mL or greater at 73 °F, which is what makes on-site dilution to working strengths straightforward. Vapor pressure runs 11.4 mmHg at 68 °F and rises to 20 mmHg at 86 °F, so the pungent vapor becomes more assertive as the warehouse or process area warms. Flash point is 104 °F, which is why this concentrated acid carries a flammability hazard alongside its corrosivity.
Industrial Applications
Acetic acid earns its place in food and industrial plants by doing one thing well: delivering controllable acidity from a concentrated, water-miscible liquid.
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Food preservation. In preserved and pickled products, acetic acid lowers pH, and the acidified environment inhibits microbial growth. Processors dilute glacial acid to the working strength their process specifies.
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Flavoring. Sauce, dressing, and marinade producers use acetic acid to deliver the sharp, vinegar-forward note in their formulations, dosing from a concentrated input for batch-to-batch consistency.
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pH adjustment. Food-processing lines use it to bring product acidity to the target the recipe or process control plan calls for.
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Chemical reagent. Outside the food plant, acetic acid serves as a reagent in chemical reactions and syntheses, and as a feedstock for making other chemicals.
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Solvent. It acts as a process solvent in the production of various chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and sees use in petroleum production.
Handling & Storage
Treat this product as what its label says it is: signal word Danger, with hazard statements H226 (flammable liquid and vapor) and H314 (causes severe skin burns and eye damage), per the product's GHS classification. Gloves and goggles are the minimum; handle it with ventilation adequate to keep the pungent vapor out of your breathing zone, and keep ignition sources away from transfer points given the 104 °F flash point.
Store it cool and dry, out of direct sunlight, in compatible containers — HDPE or glass, never bare metal, because the concentrated acid is corrosive to metals as well as tissue. Keep it segregated from strong oxidizing agents and bases. One operator note from our warehouse floor: glacial acetic acid solidifies in cold conditions, so winter storage and receiving areas should stay warm enough to keep the product liquid; a frozen drum is an inconvenience, not a defect, and thaws intact with gentle ambient warming. When diluting, always add the acid to water, slowly, with mixing.
Hazmat & Shipping
This product ships as a fully regulated hazardous material. The proper shipping name is Acetic acid, glacial (per 49 CFR 172.101), assigned UN2789 (per 49 CFR 172.101), Hazard Class 8 with a subsidiary hazard of Class 3 (per 49 CFR 172.101), Packing Group II (per 49 CFR 172.101). In practice that means UN-spec packaging, corrosive and flammable hazard communication on the outer pack, and shipping papers prepared by trained hazmat personnel. We pack quarts and gallons in UN-rated combination packaging and ship drums and totes as regulated single packagings — the same discipline at 1 quart as at 330 gallons.
Documentation
A Safety Data Sheet ships with every order and is available in English, Spanish, French, and Japanese — useful when your EHS binder or a multilingual crew needs more than the English sheet. A Technical Data Sheet is available for spec review before you buy. Because this is a food-grade product, buyers running supplier qualification can also request a lot-specific Certificate of Analysis tied to the material they receive, which is typically the document your QA team needs on file.
Why Buy from Alliance Chemical
Sixteen pack options from 1 quart to a 330-gallon tote, all offered with SDS in four languages and lot-specific COA support — that range lets a QA lab qualify a sample quantity and a production plant scale to totes without changing suppliers or paperwork. Alliance Chemical has operated since 1998 as a hazmat distributor registered with USDOT (No. 2188383), and most in-stock orders ship in 1–2 business days from our Taylor, Texas warehouse. Buyers who need a trusted bulk supplier of a regulated corrosive get exactly that: correct classification, correct packaging, and documents that hold up in an audit. The shipping and handling guidance on this page was reviewed by Andre Taki, DOT Hazmat Specialist.
