Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Synthetic sea salt

SnailsAttack - 10-2-2022 at 07:37


A study I did on producing synthetic sea salt. This was mostly a mathematics test.
Code:
= Synthetic sea salt = Seawater composition in parts per thousand (mass fraction) NA Water 964.8 18.0 g/mol 17 Chloride 19.3 35.5 g/mol 11 Sodium 10.8 23.0 g/mol NA Sulfate 2.7 96.1 g/mol 12 Magnesium 1.3 24.3 g/mol 20 Calcium 0.4 40.1 g/mol 19 Potassium 0.4 39.1 g/mol NA Bicarbonate 0.15 61.0 g/mol 35 Bromide 0.07 NA Borate 0.03 38 Strontium 0.01 9 Fluoride 0.001 3 Lithium 0.00017 = Seawater composition (moles) NA Water 53.6 17 Chloride 0.544 11 Sodium 0.470 NA Sulfate 0.028 12 Magnesium 0.053 20 Calcium 0.01 19 Potassium 0.01 NA Bicarbonate 0.0024 11 Sodium 0.470 12 Magnesium 0.053 20 Calcium 0.01 19 Potassium 0.01 17 Chloride 0.544 NA Bicarbonate 0.0024 NA Sulfate 0.028 one possible salt combination, 1 mole total: 0.94 mol NaCl 0.075 mol MgCl₂ 0.056 mol MgSO₄ 0.03 mol CaCl₂ 0.02 mol KCl direct conversion from g/mol to g: 58.5 g NaCl 7.15 g MgCl₂ 6.74 g MgSO₄ 3.33 g CaCl₂ 1.49 g KCl 10 grams total: 7.58 g NaCl 0.92 g MgCl₂ 0.87 g MgSO₄ 0.43 g CaCl₂ 0.19 g KCl


I wonder which salts sea salt actually recrystallizes as. It's very interesting to me that table salt comprises only 75% of it.



[Edited on 2/10/2022 by SnailsAttack]

[Edited on 2/10/2022 by SnailsAttack]

SWIM - 10-2-2022 at 20:21

They crystalize sea salt in making table salt from seawater.
The mother liquor is called bittern, and has the bromine and iodine in it and lots of other stuff I don't recall.
If you google bittern (and avoid all the bird related definitions) you can probably find some analyses of what bittern has in it.
It probably varies a bit, as sea water varies a bit in salt content in some areas due to local minerals and degrees of concentration.
I've got some numbers for seawater from different places somewhere around here and will add to this post If I find them.

Plunkett - 11-2-2022 at 15:55

Here are some pages from a chemical engineering encyclopedia* on seawater processing which you may find interesting.

20210805_141623_resized.jpg - 3MB

Edit: *Ulmann's Encyclopedia of industrial Chemistry

[Edited on 2/12/2022 by Plunkett]

Plunkett - 11-2-2022 at 15:57

Picture1.png - 442kB

Edit: Replaced photo with better quality screenshot

[Edited on 2/12/2022 by Plunkett]

Plunkett - 11-2-2022 at 18:43

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[88] Central Research Institute, Japan Monopoly Corporation, Figures for Salt Production. Tokyo 1954.

Edit: Added reference and replaced graph with better quality screenshot

[Edited on 2/12/2022 by Plunkett]

SWIM - 12-2-2022 at 08:46

Was your scanner on mushrooms when it took that last picture?

Plunkett - 12-2-2022 at 08:54

I had digital access to the encyclopedia through my work, but I could not print or email myself pages so I took a photos of the computer monitor. It is not the best, but I also never expected to be sharing the photos.

[Edited on 2/12/2022 by Plunkett]

Texium - 12-2-2022 at 08:56

Useful info to be sure, but please learn how to take a screenshot on your computer… It is also good practice to state the title of the source rather than just saying “a chemical engineering encyclopedia.” I’d like to seek it out myself now, because I’m quite interested in seeing what they have to say on the page you didn’t post regarding recovery from the Great Salt Lake.

Plunkett - 12-2-2022 at 10:12

After looking at some of the other photos I took I believe it is Ulmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry. I cannot find a PDF of the volume that discusses the Great Salt Lake (I think it was from the one on magnesium or bromine), but I found a PDF with the other pages I posted and replaced the photos with better quality screenshots. I am sorry for the poor quality screen shots. I took the photos for my personal reference when I had the idea to isolate bromine and magnesium from seawater. Since I do not live near the Great Salt Lake that section was not of interest of me. Here is one last table that compares the composition of different saline waters and it includes the Great Salt Lake as well as the PDF for the volume on sodium chloride

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[99] H. Aral, B.D. Hill, G.J. Sparrow: "Value Adding to Salts Recovered from Saline Waters" in Disposed Basins in the Murray-Darling Basin - Appendix 2: Production of Salts from Brines and Bitterns, Murray-Darling Basin Comission, Canberra 2004 (ISBN 1921038268)


Attachment: ullmann_sodium_chloride.pdf (942kB)
This file has been downloaded 360 times

[Edited on 2/12/2022 by Plunkett]

SnailsAttack - 15-2-2022 at 19:01

Quote: Originally posted by Plunkett  
Here are some pages from a chemical engineering encyclopedia* on seawater processing which you may find interesting.
Edit: *Ulmann's Encyclopedia of industrial Chemistry

awesome, thank you. i've been looking for documentation on separating sea salts by recrystallization for ages!

I really wished I lived near some saltwater lol. Lake Ontario hasn't got nothin in it