Mesoxalic acid can be obtained synthetically by hydrolysis of alloxan with baryta water,[2] by warming caffuric acid[3] with lead acetate solution,[2] or from glyceryl diacetate and concentrated nitric acid in ice-cold water. The product can be obtained also by oxidation of tartronic acid[4] or glycerol.[5] Since they are carried out in water, these procedures generally give the dihydroxy derivative.
It is also prepared by the oxidation of glycerol with the help of bismuth(III) nitrate.
References
Merck Index (12th ed.). p. 5971.
Henry Enfield Roscoe (1888), A Treatise on Chemistry, volume 3, part2 Organic Chemistry, p. 161. D. Appleton and Co., New York
The chemical structure of caffuric acid was given in Allen, W. F. (1932). The preparation and pyrolytic molecular rearrangment [sic] of the 8-ethers of caffeine: And their conversion to 8-methyl and 8-ethylcaffeine. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Edwards Brothers.
Rosaria Ciriminna and Mario Pagliaro (2004), Oxidation of tartronic acid and dihydroxyacetone to sodium mesoxalate mediated by TEMPO. Tetrahedron Letters, volume 45, issue 34, pp. 6381–6383 doi:10.1016/j.tetlet.2004.07.021
Rosaria Ciriminna and Mario Pagliaro (2003), One-Pot Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Oxidation of Glycerol to Ketomalonic Acid Mediated by TEMPO. Advanced Synthesis & Catalysis, volume 345, issue 3, Pages 383–388. doi:10.1002/adsc.200390043