Fungistats and mold growth: Synthesis projects and structure activity relationships of substituted benzoic acids

CHED 398

Joel B. Klabo and Don B. Alger, dalger@csuchico.edu. Department of Chemistry, California State University, Chico, Chico, CA 95929-0210
Benzoic acid and sodium benzoate are commonly added to foods, in particular to breads, to retard mold growth. In order to develop a simple experiment to demonstrate structure activity relationships between organic chemicals and biological activity, the relative effectiveness of a variety of substituted benzoic acids as fungistats for common bread molds have been studied. Since several of the desired disubstituted benzoic acids are not commercially available, this project provided an interesting justification for the synthesis of a variety of substituted benzoic acids. In addition the mechanism of action was explored by examination of some structure activity relationships