Sodium chloride

“ As sodium chloride, or common table salt, it is taken in great quantities by most people. Those who have no salt get along well without it, which shows that it is not needed in large amounts. If but a little is added to the food, it does no perceptible harm, but when sprinkled on everything that is eaten, from watermelons to meat, it is without doubt harmful. By soaking foods, they are deprived of much of their soda: The two sodium salts that are very abundant are sodium chloride, or common salt, and sodium carbonate, generally called soda. ”

“ Chlorine, although one of the most widely distributed elements known to chemists, is never found in the free condition in nature; it exists in enormous quantities in combination with sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, etc. As sodium chloride, common salt, it occurs in practically inexhaustible quantities in sea water together with smaller quantities of other chlorides. ”

“ Chlorine does not occur free in nature, but its compounds are widely distributed. For the most part it occurs in combination with the metals in the form of chlorides, those of sodium, potassium, and magnesium being most abundant. Nearly all salt water contains these substances, particularly sodium chloride, and very large salt beds consisting of chlorides are found in many parts of the world. ”

“ Common salt constitutes the mineral halite, the composition of which is sodium chloride. It is rarely found perfectly pure in nature, but is commonly mixed with other saline materials, such as gypsum and anhydrite, and occasionally with salts of potassium and magnesium. The general grade of rock-salt deposits, where not admixed with clay, is perhaps 96 to 99 per cent of sodium chloride. ”

“ Common salt is a chemical compound of the metal sodium and the greenish coloured, evil smelling gas chlorine, its proper name being sodium chloride. A solution of this in water is placed in a vat or cell, and a current is sent through it. The solution is then split up into chlorine, at the anode, and sodium at the cathode. Sodium has a remarkably strong liking for water, and as soon as it is set free from the chlorine it combines with the water of the solution, and227 a new solution of sodium hydrate is formed. ”

“ Again, the greenish-yellow and intensely poisonous gas, chlorine, unites in definite proportions by weight with the soft, wax-like, and highly poisonous metal sodium to produce the white crystalline solid chloride of sodium (common salt) , a compound which, except in very large quantities, is not only not poisonous, but actually beneficial to health.
Such combinations are called chemical compounds, and the force which binds their constituents together is distinguished from all other attractive forces by the term affinity or chemical affinity. ”

“ A method of promoting the preservation of fish by salt by the aid of sodium hypochlorite along with the salt has been patented. The original idea, it is understood, was to decompose the salt in sea water by electrolysis, sodium hypochlorite being formed. It was claimed that the sodium hypochlorite penetrates faster than ordinary salt. This substance contains some oxygen that may be given off to act as a sterilizing agent, and after the oxygen is given off ordinary salt or sodium chloride remains. ”

“ I found, now, that, if the freshly fertilized eggs of this fish are put into a pure sodium chloride solution having a concentration equal to the concentration of the sodium chloride in the sea-water (about 5/8 m) , not a single egg can develop into an embryo. If, however, a trace of a calcium salt is added to the sodium chloride solution, as many eggs develop and in just as normal a manner as in ordinary sea-water. The calcium ions in this case undoubtedly serve the purpose of annihilating the poisonous effects of a pure sodium chloride solution. ”

“ These experiments shewed sufficiently that the whole of the chlorine had not acted upon the carbonate of soda to produce chloride of sodium, and chlorate of soda; that much was in a peculiar state of solution or union which enabled it to withstand ebullition, and yet to act freely as a bleaching or disinfecting agent; and that probably little or none had combined with the sodium, or been converted into chloric acid. To put these ideas to the test, two equal portions of the Labarraque solution were taken ”

“ The Diaphragm process is probably the only one employed at present for the decomposition of potassium chloride, and it is also used for sodium chloride. A hot, concentrated solution of the alkaline chloride is treated by the electric current in large iron tanks which at the same time serve as cathodes. The anodes are made of retort-carbon or other chlorine-resisting material, and they are mounted in cells which serve as diaphragms. The material of these cells is usually cement, mixed with certain soluble salts which impart sufficient porosity to the material. ”

“ If common salt be a chloride of sodium, and experiment obliges us so to regard it, what is there in its aqueous solution that should lead us to consider it as containing a muriate of soda; what evidence of any new arrangement of elements? Dr. T. is certainly in mistake, when he says, “for all practical purposes, therefore, the solution of a metallic chloride in water may be viewed as the muriate of an oxide, and on this account I shall always regard it as such in the present treatise.” ”

“ The point of maximum solubility is about 95° Fahr. The presence of magnesium chloride, or of calcium chloride, in water, diminishes its power of dissolving sulphate of lime, while the presence of sodium chloride increases that power. As an instance of the latter fact, we find a boiler works much cleaner which is fed alternately with fresh water and with brackish water pumped from the Tyne when the tide is high than one which is fed with fresh water constantly. ”

“ Sodium chloride may be introduced in large quantities into the circulation without causing increased peristalsis or defaecation. Sodium oxalate and phosphate (Na2HPO4) exert only a slight action. Sodium phosphate, according to Bunge, increases the fluid in the intestine. Sodium tartrate produces quite active movements of the intestine and is considerably stronger in its action than either the oxalate or phosphate. Sodium citrate and sulphate as described above are quite constant and vigorous in their action, while barium chloride is by far the most powerful of all these saline purgatives. ”

“ The filtrate contains only the alkali that was originally present as hydrate, the carbonate of soda having formed with the barium chloride, insoluble barium carbonate, and sodium chloride.
Bleaching Powder.—The value of bleaching powder {206} depends upon the amount of available chlorine that it contains. This is determined by means of a standard solution of arsenious acid. The standard solution is prepared by dissolving pure arsenious oxide (As2O3) in sodium carbonate solution. ”

“ The chloride of magnesium, or bittern, not only deteriorates the salt very much, but occasions a considerable loss of weight. It may, however, be most advantageously got rid of, and converted into chloride of sodium by the following simple expedient:—Let quicklime be introduced in equivalent quantity to the magnesia present, and it will precipitate this earth, and form chloride of calcium, which will immediately react upon the sulphate of soda in the mother-water, with the production of sulphate of lime and chloride of sodium. ”

“ If, however, no porous division be used to prevent the intermingling by diffusion of the anode and cathode solutions, a complicated set of subsidiary reactions takes place. The chlorine reacts with the caustic soda, forming sodium hypochlorite, and this in turn, with an excess of chlorine and at higher temperatures, becomes for the most part converted into chlorate, whilst any simultaneous electrolysis of a hydroxide or water and a chloride (so that hydroxyl and chlorine are simultaneously liberated at the anode) also produces oxygen-chlorine compounds direct. ”

“ By repeating the operation and fusing the salt (when adhering hydrochloric acid is volatilised) a pure salt is obtained, which is again crystallised from its solution by evaporation. [9]
Pure sodium chloride, in well-defined crystals (slowly deposited at the bottom of the liquid) or in compact masses (in which form rock salt is sometimes met with) , is a colourless and transparent substance resembling, but more brittle and less hard than, glass. [10] Common salt always crystallises in the cubic system, most frequently in cubes, and more rarely in octahedra. ”

“ In solution it is precipitated yellow by the chloride of platinum, and yields, when not greatly diluted, a crystalline precipitate with perchloric acid. The crude salt of commerce contains chloride of sodium; and hence the odour disengaged by sulphuric acid may be mixed with that of chlorine or hydrochloric acid gas. When mixed with any vegetable or animal infusion by which it is coloured, crystals may sometimes be easily procured in a state of sufficient purity by filtration and evaporation. ”

“ Common salt is used daily with our food; is harmless and useful; it is known as the chloride of sodium. By analysis this compound is separated, analyzed, into chlorine and sodium. Na stands for sodium, and Cl for chlorine. Combine Cl with H. That forms hydrochloric acid, a strong poison, strong enough to dissolve marble. Cl has little attraction for O. Its chemical energies are principally exerted toward hydrogen and the metals. ”

“ From the bacteriological results given by Dakin and Dunham it would appear that 3 parts per million of halazone (1.5 p.p.m. available chlorine) are sufficient to sterilise heavily polluted waters in thirty minutes and that this concentration can be relied upon to remove pathogenic organisms.
The formula recommended for the preparation of tablets is halazone 4 per cent, sodium carbonate, 4 per cent (or dried borax 8 per cent) , and sodium chloride (pure) 92 per cent. ”

“ As all mineral waters originate from rock-salt, and as they all owe their other constituents to superincumbent strata, it would not be unreasonable to suggest that the chloride of sodium is, prima facie, their principal ingredient, and that their beneficial effects are to a certain extent due to it, more than to the presence of those from which their names are derived ”

“ They are all decomposed on heating, with evolution of oxygen; and in contact with concentrated sulphuric acid with liberation of chlorine peroxide. The most important is potassium chlorate, KClO3, which was obtained in 1786 by C. L. Berthollet by the action of chlorine on caustic potash, and this method was at first used for its manufacture. The modern process consists in the electrolysis of a hot solution of potassium chloride, or, preferably, the formation of sodium chlorate by the electrolytic method and its subsequent decomposition by potassium chloride. ”

“ When the partial or total conversion of the liquid has been effected (this being ascertained by chlorometric tests) , the pump, P, is set rapidly in operation, and, as a consequence, draws up the chloride of sodium from the bottom of the vessel, C, to the lower part of the electrolyzer, A. The hypochlorite that has formed passes through the tube, D (as a natural consequence of the elevation of the level of the liquid in A brought about by the entrance of a new supply of chloride) , and distributes itself throughout the vessel, C, where it acts upon the textile material. ”

“ On its way to the surface, or at the surface, the chloride of sodium becomes decomposed by contact with carbonates of ammonia and potassa—sulphuric and nitric acids. In a soil well supplied with decaying animal or vegetable matter, these carbonates or sulphates of soda, as they rise to the surface, might be formed into nutriment for plants, and taken up by their roots; or in one well flooded occasionally with fresh water, any superabundance of the salts or their bases might be taken up in solution and carried off. ”

“ It was first obtained, in an impure condition, in 1828 by A. A. B. Bussy (1794–1882) and F. Wöhler by the reduction of the chloride with potassium, and in 1855 H. J. Debray prepared it, in a compact state, by reducing the volatilized chloride with melted sodium, in an atmosphere of hydrogen. ”

“ The solution of sodium hypochlorite for surgical use must be free of caustic alkali; it must only contain 0.45% to 0.50 of hypochlorite. Under 0.45% it is not active enough and above 0.50 it is irritant. With chloride of lime (bleaching powder) having 25% of active chlorine, the quantities of necessary substances to prepare ten litres of solution are the following:—
Pour into 12 litre flask the two hundred grammes of chloride of lime and five litres of ordinary water, shake vigorously for a few minutes and leave in contact for six to twelve hours, one night for example. ”

“ With oxygen it forms two oxides; with chlorine, a chloride (common salt) ; and—with bromine, iodine, fluorine, &c., bromide, iodide, fluoride, &c., all of which may be obtained by similar processes to the respective compounds of potassium, which, for the most part they resemble.
Uses. Until recently sodium has been regarded as a mere mechanical or philosophical curiosity; it has now, however, become of great practical importance, from being employed in the manufacture of the metals aluminium, magnesium, &c. ”

“ Sodium is the metallic base of soda. It is silver white with a high lustre; crystallizes in cubes; of the consistence of wax at ordinary temperatures, and completely liquid at 194°, and139 volatilizes at a bright red heat. It is very generally diffused throughout nature though apparently somewhat less abundantly than potassium in the solid crust of the globe.
Salt, the chloride of sodium, a natural compound of one atom of chloride and one of sodium. It occurs as a rock inter-stratified with marl, and sandstones, and gypsum, and as an element of salt springs, sea water, and salt water lakes. ”