Sodium nitrate, techn.

PROPERTIES

Sodium nitrate appears as colorless, odorless transparent crystals, or white granules or powder. It is highly soluble in water, ethanol, liquid ammonia and slightly dissolved in methanol, alcohol, and solvent ether. It shows strong hydroscopic property. Sodium nitrate is a strong oxidizer but stable under ordinary conditions of use and storage.

APPLICATIONS

FOOD

Sodium nitrate is used by the food industry in the packaging of highly processed meats, fish and cheeses as an antimicrobial preservative and a color fixative food additive. It is said to be one of the main inhibitors of a strain of microbacteria Clostridium botulinum. Moreover, it inhibits meats from turning gray and brown long after they are supposed to naturally change colors.

ELECTRONICS

Sodium nitrate can be applied in electronic industry, to make electronic materials to clean rate intergrate circuit board.

METALURGY
Metallurgy industry use this chemical as a precipitating and resolving agent or rare earth material, as steel, aluminum alloy heat treatment agent.

HOUSEHOLD

Sodium natrium is used in the aquarium hobby as a nitrate addition in planted aquariums where god growth often causes the plants to consume all the nitrate produced.

AGRO

Sodium nitrate is used together with potassium nitrate for heat storage and, more recently, for heat transfer in solar power plants.

It has been widely used in shrimp aquaculture ponds as a fertilizer, a water quality enhancer and a bottom soil oxidant.

It is used as a quick-impact acidic soil fertilizer, especially for never root crops such as beets, radishes, carrots, turnips.

GLASS

Sodium nitrate is involved in a two-stage process for making chemically strengthened glass. The glass item is first immersed in a sodium nitrate bath which enriches the surface of the glass with sodium ions increasing the strength of the finished product. Sodium nitrate is also used for clarifying molten glass in the production of high-quality glasses. It is used as fluxing medium for enamel industry, as decolorizer, defoamer and clarifying agent for glass industry.

PHARMA

Sodium nitrate is listed as the inactive ingredient in a variety of eye drops, presumably as a preservative. It is often used as a nitrogen containing, control compound.

There is the application in pharmaceutical industry as a penicillin medium.

EXPLOSIVES

Sodium nitrate is an ingredient in smoke bombs and a solid rocket propellant. It is known to be used as a substitute for potassium nitrate in black powder propellant because of the advantages like being inexpensive, stable, non-toxic and non-poisonous chemical. However, it does have a slow burn rate.

Other uses:

Purification and extraction of gold.

Manufacturing nitro-compound.

Cigarette tobacco industry for the Combustion.

Analytical chemistry for chemical reagents, as a laboratory agent, solvents activato and basic materials for chemical industry.