The parent pyrophosphates are derived from partial or complete neutralization of pyrophosphoric acid.

At physiological pH's, pyrophosphate exists as a mixture of doubly and singly protonated forms.

Disodium pyrophosphate is prepared by thermal condensation of sodium dihydrogen phosphate or by partial deprotonation of pyrophosphoric acid.

For example, when a nucleotide is incorporated into a growing DNA or RNA strand by a polymerase, pyrophosphate (PPi) is released.

Pyrophosphorolysis is the reverse of the polymerization reaction in which pyrophosphate reacts with the 3′-nucleosidemonophosphate (NMP or dNMP), which is removed from the oligonucleotide to release the corresponding triphosphate (dNTP from DNA, or NTP from RNA).

It is unstable in aqueous solution and hydrolyzes into inorganic phosphate: or in biologists' shorthand notation: In the absence of enzymic catalysis, hydrolysis reactions of simple polyphosphates such as pyrophosphate, linear triphosphate, ADP, and ATP normally proceed extremely slowly in all but highly acidic media.

The plasma concentration of inorganic pyrophosphate has a reference range of 0.58–3.78 μM (95% prediction interval).