Not to be confused with meconic acid

Meconic acid

Meconic acid, also known as acidum meconicum and poppy acid, is a chemical substance found in certain plants of the Papaveraceae family such as Papaver somniferum and Papaver bracteatum. Meconic acid constitutes about 5% of opium and can be used as an analytical marker for the presence of opium...

, an unrelated dicarboxylic acid

Muconic acid is a dicarboxylic acid. There are three isomer

Isomer

In chemistry, isomers are compounds with the same molecular formula but different structural formulas. Isomers do not necessarily share similar properties, unless they also have the same functional groups. There are many different classes of isomers, like stereoisomers, enantiomers, geometrical...

ic forms designated trans,trans-muconic acid, cis,trans-muconic acid, and cis,cis-muconic acid which differ by the geometry around the double bond

Double bond

A double bond in chemistry is a chemical bond between two chemical elements involving four bonding electrons instead of the usual two. The most common double bond, that between two carbon atoms, can be found in alkenes. Many types of double bonds between two different elements exist, for example in...

s.

trans,trans	cis,trans	cis,cis

trans,trans-Muconic acid is a metabolite

Metabolite

Metabolites are the intermediates and products of metabolism. The term metabolite is usually restricted to small molecules. A primary metabolite is directly involved in normal growth, development, and reproduction. Alcohol is an example of a primary metabolite produced in large-scale by industrial...

 of benzene in humans. The determination of its concentration in urine is therefore used as a biomarker of occupational or environmental exposure to benzene. Synthetically, trans,trans-muconic acid can be prepared from adipic acid

Adipic acid

Adipic acid is the organic compound with the formula 42. From the industrial perspective, it is the most important dicarboxylic acid: About 2.5 billion kilograms of this white crystalline powder are produced annually, mainly as a precursor for the production of nylon...

.

cis,cis-Muconic acid is produced by some bacteria by the enzymatic degradation of various aromatic chemical compounds.