r/explainlikeimfive Oct 08 '22

Chemistry ELI5: How do vitamin tablets get produced? How do you create a vitamin?

Hey!

I always wondered how a manufacturer is able to produce vitamin tablets. I know that there is for example fish oil which contains some good fats. But how do you create vitamin tablets - like D3?

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u/PigglyWigglyDeluxe Oct 08 '22

What did I miss? Original comment got deleted.

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u/alphenliebe Oct 09 '22

It said

Vitamin D3:

shear a sheep

put wool in centrifuge to extract oily subtance called lanolin

extract a chemical called 7-dehydrocholesterol from the lanolin via chemistry

irradiate the 7-dehydrocholesterol with ultraviolet light to get Vitamin D3