Sulfuric acid is one of the most important compounds made by the chemical industry. It is used to make, literally, hundreds of compounds needed by almost every industry.

Uses of sulfuric acid

By far the largest amount of sulfuric acid is used to make phosphoric acid, used, in turn, to make the phosphate fertilizers, calcium dihydrogenphosphate and the ammonium phosphates. It is also used to make ammonium sulfate, which is a particularly important fertilizer in sulfur-deficient.

It is widely used in metal processing for example in the manufacture of copper and themanufacture of zinc and in cleaning the surface of steel sheet, known as "pickling", prior to it being covered in a thin layer of tin, used to make cans for food.

It is also used to make caprolactam, which is converted into polyamide 6 and in themanufacture of titanium dioxide, used, for example, as a pigment.

Amongst its many other uses is in the manufacture of hydrofluoric acid and phenol with propanone all of which are used in many industries.

Sulfuric acid is one of the most important industrial chemicals. More of it is made each year than is made of any other manufactured chemical; more than 40 million tons of it were produced in the United States in 1990. It has widely varied uses and plays some part in the production of nearly all manufactured goods. The major use of sulfuric acid is in the production of fertilizers, e.g., superphosphate of lime and ammonium sulfate. It is widely used in the manufacture of chemicals, e.g., in making hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, sulfate salts, synthetic detergents, dyes and pigments, explosives, and drugs. It is used in petroleum refining to wash impurities out of gasoline and other refinery products. Sulfuric acid is used in processing metals, e.g., in pickling (cleaning) iron and steel before plating them with tin or zinc. Rayon is made with sulfuric acid. It serves as the electrolyte in the lead-acid storage battery commonly used in motor vehicles (acid for this use, containing about 33% H₂SO4 and with specific gravity about 1.25, is often called battery acid).