Tartaric acid was first isolated from potassium bitartrate circa 800 AD, by the alchemist Jābir ibn Hayyān.[4] The modern process was developed in 1769 by the Swedishchemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele.
Tartaric acid played an important role in the discovery of chemical chirality. This property of tartaric acid was first observed in 1832 by Jean Baptiste Biot, who observed its ability to rotate polarized light. Louis Pasteur continued this research in 1847 by investigating the shapes of ammonium sodium tartrate crystals, which he found to be chiral. By manually sorting the differently shaped crystals under magnification, Pasteur was the first to produce a pure sample of levotartaric acid.
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