Alizarin Properties

Description

Alizarin is an organic compound that is historically important as a prominent dye, originally derived from the roots of plants of the madder genus. It is the main ingredient for the manufacture of the madder lake pigments known to painters as Rose madder and Alizarin crimson. Alizarin red is used in a biochemical assay to determine, quantitatively by colorimetry, the presence of calcific deposition by cells of an osteogenic lineage. In clinical practice, it is also used to stain synovial fluid to assess for basic calcium phosphate crystals. In geology, it is used as a stain to indicate the calcium carbonate minerals, calcite and aragonite.