information:highlighting, information:filtering, linguistic:paraphrasing
Chemical production

Racemic lactic acid is synthesized industrially by reacting acetaldehyde with hydrogen cyanide and hydrolysing the resultant lactonitrile. When hydrolysis is performed by hydrochloric acid, ammonium chloride forms as a by-product; the Japanese company Musashino is one of the last big manufacturers of lactic acid by this route. Synthesis of both racemic and enantiopure lactic acids is also possible from other starting materials (vinyl acetate, glycerol, etc.) by application of catalytic procedures.