Borax - Granular

• Also known as Borax Pentahydrate
• Grade: Granular - Technical
• CAS: 12045-88-4
• Etibor 48 (5 mol borax

Borax, also called sodium borate, or sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate, is an important boron compound, a mineral, and a salt of boric acid. It is usually a white powder consisting of soft colorless crystals that dissolve easily in water.

Borax has a wide variety of uses. It is a component of many detergents, cosmetics, and enamel glazes. It is also used to make buffer solutions in biochemistry, as a fire retardant, as an anti-fungal compound for fibreglass, as an insecticide, as a flux in metallurgy, and as a precursor for other boron compounds.

The term borax is used for a number of closely related minerals or chemical compounds that differ in their crystal water content, but usually refers to the decahydrate. Commercially sold borax is usually partially dehydrated.

Borax occurs naturally in evaporite deposits produced by the repeated evaporation of seasonal lakes (see playa). The most commercially important deposits are found in Turkey and near Boron, California and other locations in the American southwest, the Atacama desert in Chile, and in Tibet. Borax can also be produced synthetically from other boron compounds.

What is Borax

Borax is a mineral that is known under several different names, these include sodium borate decahydrate, sodium pyroborate; birax sodium tetraborate decahydrate;sodium biborate. It is usually found deep within the ground and has been harvested close to the surface in death Valley California. Its most common uses include a laundry booster, multipurpose cleaner, preservative, insecticide. People also use borax to make slime.

The Crystals are odorless and alkaline, borax itself is not flammable or reactive.

Borax Crystals

making and Growing Borax crystals is very cool.

If you want to make a borax snowflake all you need is some pipe cleaner, borax and a wide mouth pint jar.

Twist the pipe cleaner together into a pattern that you like, this is the pattern that your snowflake / star will be in. make sure that the design and style that you choose is small enough to fix inside the wide mouth jar.

A piece of string should be tied around the end of one if your snowflakes legs, the other end of the string around a pencil. Make sure the string is at least about an inch or two long so that the star will hang in the jar from the string when the pencil is horizontally across the wide mouth of the jar.

Fill the jar with boiling water, add borax to the water slowly stirring it in so that it dissolves nicely. Ad it slowly and continuously stir it in. Depending on the size of your jar you will need to add more Borax, the generally ratio is 3 tablespoons per cup of water.

This is a great opportunity to tint the borax by adding some coloring to the water.

Now hang the snowflake into the jar with the pencil so that the snowflake is completely covered with liquid and hangs freely.

Let the solution cure for 24 hours, enjoy you new snowflake.

Borax

Sodium Borate (also known as borax) is commonly used in soap and cosmetics. its popularity is due to the multiple possible roles it can play. Used as a cleaner, preservative and emulsifier borax is one important ingredient. Commonly used in bath bombs, soaps and bath salts.

Cleaning with Borax

Borax can be a powerful all natural bathroom and kitchen cleaner.

Mix 1/4 cup of borax powder with 1/4 cup of sodium bicarbonate. That's all you need, add a splice of lemon essential oil or juice for the clean fresh scent. When used as a cleaner borax also helps keep away many bugs.

Borax will also help you get rid of roaches, Roches are thigmatropic (the like to rub against walls), sprinkle borax along the base of your walls and the roaches and other bugs will get it on themselves. the borax then adheres to their carapaces and leaches vital nutrients from their innards.

Borax will help get rid of fleas, sprinkle a small amount onto your carpets and vacuum it out. This is helpful with very small infestations, if you have a serious flea problem see a professional.

The Chemistry of Borax

Borax is a mineral found in various deposits around the world, it is made up of B)

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:

• Color is white to clear.
• Luster is vitreous.
• Transparency crystals are transparent to translucent.
• Crystal System is monoclinic; 2/m
• Crystal Habits include the blocky to prismatic crystals with a nearly square cross section. Also massive and as crusts.
• Cleavage is perfect in one direction.
• Fracture is conchoidal.
• Hardness is 2 - 2.5
• Specific Gravity is approximately 1.7 (very light)
• Streak is white.
• Other Characteristics: a sweet alkaline taste, alters to chalky white tincalconite with dehydration.
• Notable Occurrences include Trona, Boron, Death Valley and other California localities; Andes Mountains; Turkey and Tibet.
• Best Field Indicators are crystal habit, color, associations, locality, density and hardness.

Toxic

Boric acid, sodium borate, and sodium perborate are estimated to have a fatal dose from 0.1 to 0.5g/kg. These substances are toxic to all cells, and have a slow excretion rate through the kidneys. Kidney toxicity is the greatest, with liver fatty degeneration, cerebral edema, and gastroenteritis. Boric acid solutions used as an eye wash or on abraded skin are known to be especially toxic to infants, especially after repeated use due to its slow elimination rate.

Other uses

• component of detergents
• component of cosmetics
• anti-fungal compound for fibreglass and cellulose insulation
• insecticide to kill ants and fleas