Or halite, the necessary and only mineral in nature that people eat. It took hundreds of years for it to become an indispensable seasoning in every kitchen.

Halite gets its name from the combination of two words: galla (“ink nut”) and lithos (“stone”). In its pure form, halite contains many impurities and is not suitable for human consumption. Only after processing it is used to obtain ordinary rock salt.

Features of origin

This interesting mineral belongs to sedimentary rocks and occurs in natural brines, gradually crystallizing there. Its deposits have not yet been studied. There are salt rocks in different regions of our country. They are also found in volcanic craters. Natural halite in its natural state contains about 8% impurities, and its color varies from white, yellow, to blue and even red. Many minerals are covered with a dense skin of gypsum.

Chemical composition

39% of halite consists of sodium Na and 60.6% of . In addition to them, the composition contains KCl, CaCl, MgCl₂ - their content depends on the deposit.

Varieties of mineral

In nature, it is customary to divide halite into certain categories:

• self-sedimented salt is a natural rock that forms in evaporite deposits with fine-grained druse deposits;
• salt marsh - common in steppe and desert areas, it is salt efflorescence on the very surface of the soil in the form of a coating;

Salt flats of Uyuni (Bolivia)

• volcanic halite - asbestos aggregates formed as a result of vulcanization; they are mined directly from the craters of volcanoes;
• rock salt - compaction of sedimentary accumulations of halite in rocks and their layers.

Different types of halite are formed as a result of salt precipitation. Previously, it was generally accepted that the mineral was obtained as a result of the precipitation of sea salt and the evaporation of moisture from it on the surface. However, over time, this theory lost its force. The formation of halite rock is influenced by certain physical properties, chemical compounds and geological features. To study the chemical properties of salt, you can conduct a few simple experiments even at home.

Salt talismans

Salt has been credited with miraculous properties for many centuries. It was believed that the seemingly simple mineral could heal and expel negativity from life and home. And now salt is associated with many signs: scattering it means a quarrel, pouring it on the ground in the shape of a cross makes it a talisman against evil spirits, and also reveals damage. Such amulets had to be made on certain days indicated in the old ritual books.

Royal Salt Mines in Wieliczka (Poland)

Medicinal properties

In addition to its magical properties, halite is also known as a healing mineral. It is an excellent anti-cold remedy. They are used to gargle the throat and nose for sore throats and runny nose. It copes well with pharyngitis, sinusitis, toothache and tonsillitis.

Making halite salt for rinsing is quite simple: you need to take 1 tablespoon of salt and dilute it in a glass of warm boiled water (200 ml). You can add a few drops to the glass. Stir until the crystals dissolve. This remedy helps well with purulent processes, inflammatory and infectious formations. Radiculitis and sinusitis are warmed up with salt heated in a bag. But this must be done very carefully. The treatment of bronchitis and pneumonia with air-saturated halite ions has proven effective. This will require special equipment.

Application

The widespread use of halite is due to the availability of mining of this mineral. It is mainly used in the food industry. Before packaging, the natural mineral is purified from impurities. Sometimes iodine is added or additional crushing is carried out, resulting in “Extra” salt.

In the chemical industry, the substance halite is used to remove sodium and chlorine. As a result, we get the soda we know, concentrated alkalis and even hydrochloric acid. Halite is often found in paper, glass, etc. By the way, the halite monocrystalline film in the lenses serves as an additional layer of strength.

Concentrated halite is used to clean boilers of water heating units from scale. Halite is a good remedy in the fight against frostbite on roads. Salt sculptures, lamps, interior items, and amulets are made from pure rocks of the mineral. But this mineral is quite fragile and can be easily damaged. Therefore, halite should be used only for its intended purpose.

The formula of which is NaCl is a food product. In inorganic chemistry, this substance is called sodium chloride. In its crushed form, table salt, the formula of which is given above, appears as white crystals. Insignificant gray shades may appear in the presence of other mineral salts as impurities.

It is produced in various forms: unrefined and purified, small and large, iodized.

Biological significance

A crystal of table salt, which has an ionic chemical bond, is necessary for the full life and activity of humans and other living organisms. Sodium chloride takes part in regulating and maintaining water-salt balance and alkaline metabolism. Biological mechanisms control the constant concentration of sodium chloride in various fluids, such as blood.

The difference in NaCl concentrations inside and outside the cell is the main mechanism for the entry of nutrients into the cell, as well as the removal of waste products. A similar process is used in the generation and transmission of impulses by neurons. Also, the chlorine anion in this compound is the main material for the formation of hydrochloric acid, the most important component of gastric juice.

The daily requirement for this substance is from 1.5 to 4 grams, and for hot climates the dose of sodium chloride increases several times.

The body does not need the compound itself, but the Na+ cation and the Cl- anion. If the amount of these ions is insufficient, muscle and bone tissue is destroyed. Depression, mental and nervous diseases, disturbances in the cardiovascular system and digestive processes, muscle spasms, anorexia, and osteoporosis appear.

Chronic lack of Na+ and Cl- ions leads to death. Biochemist Zhores Medvedev noted that with the complete absence of salt in the body, one can last no more than 11 days.

Even in ancient times, tribes of cattle breeders and hunters consumed raw meat products to satisfy the body's need for salt. Agricultural tribes consumed plant foods that contained small amounts of sodium chloride. Signs indicating a lack of salt include weakness and headache, nausea, and dizziness.

Production Features

In the distant past, salt was extracted by burning certain plants in fires. The resulting ash was used as a seasoning.

Table salt obtained by evaporating sea water was not purified; the resulting substance was immediately consumed as food. This technology originated in countries with hot and dry climates, where a similar process occurred without human intervention, and then, when other countries adopted it, sea water began to be heated artificially.

Saltworks were built on the shores of the White Sea, in which concentrated brine and fresh water were obtained by evaporation and freezing.

Natural deposits

Among the places characterized by large reserves of table salt, we highlight:

• Artemovskoye field, located in the Donetsk region. Salt is extracted here using the mine method;
• Lake Baskunchak, transportation is carried out along a specially built railway;
• potassium salts were found in large quantities in the Verkhnekamskoye deposit, where this mineral is mined using the mine method;
• mining was carried out in the Odessa estuaries until 1931; currently the deposit is not used on an industrial scale;
• In the Seregovskoye deposit, brine is evaporated.

Salt mine

The biological properties of table salt made it an important economic object. As of 2006, about 4.5 million tons of this mineral were used on the Russian market, with 0.56 million tons going for food consumption, and the remaining 4 million tons going to the needs of the chemical industry.

physical characteristics

Let's look at some properties of table salt. This substance dissolves quite well in water, and the process is influenced by several factors:

• temperature;
• presence of impurities.

A crystal of table salt contains impurities in the form of calcium and magnesium cations. This is why sodium chloride absorbs water (it becomes damp in the air). If such ions are not part of table salt, this property is absent.

The melting point of table salt is 800.8 °C, which indicates the strong crystalline structure of this compound. Mixing fine sodium chloride powder with crushed ice produces a high quality coolant.

For example, 100 g of ice and 30 g of table salt can reduce the temperature to −20 °C. The reason for this phenomenon is that the table salt solution freezes at temperatures below 0 °C. Ice, for which this value is the melting point, melts in such a solution, absorbing heat from the environment.

The high melting point of table salt explains its thermodynamic characteristics, as well as its high dielectric constant - 6.3.

Receipt

Considering how important the biological and chemical properties of table salt and its significant natural reserves are, there is no need to develop an option for the industrial production of this substance. Let's look at laboratory options for producing sodium chloride:

1. This compound can be obtained as a product by reacting copper (2) sulfate with barium chloride. After removing the precipitate, which is barium sulfate, and evaporating the filtrate, crystals of table salt can be obtained.
2. When sodium exothermicly combines with chlorine gas, sodium chloride is also formed, and the process is accompanied by the release of a significant amount of heat (exothermic form).

Interactions

What are the chemical properties of table salt? This compound is formed by a strong base and a strong acid, so hydrolysis does not occur in an aqueous solution. The neutrality of the environment explains the use of table salt in the food industry.

During the electrolysis of an aqueous solution of this compound, hydrogen gas is released at the cathode, and the formation of chlorine occurs at the anode. Sodium hydroxide accumulates in the interelectrode space.

Considering that the resulting alkali is a substance in demand in various production processes, this also explains the use of table salt on an industrial scale in chemical production.

The density of table salt is 2.17 g/cm3. A cubic face-centered crystal lattice is characteristic of many minerals. Inside it, ionic chemical bonds predominate, formed due to the action of forces of electrostatic attraction and repulsion.

Halite

Since the density of table salt in this compound is quite high (2.1-2.2 g/cm³), halite is a solid mineral. The percentage of sodium cation in it is 39.34%, chlorine anion - 60.66%. In addition to these ions, halite contains ions of bromine, copper, silver, calcium, oxygen, lead, potassium, manganese, nitrogen, and hydrogen in the form of impurities. This transparent, colorless mineral with a glassy luster is formed in closed bodies of water. Halite is a product of distillation in volcanic craters.

Rock salt

It is a sedimentary rock from the evaporite group that consists of more than 90 percent halite. Rock salt is characterized by a snow-white color; only in exceptional cases, the presence of clay gives the mineral a gray tint, and the presence of iron oxides gives the compound a yellow or orange color. Rock salt contains not only sodium chloride, but also many other chemical compounds of magnesium, calcium, and potassium:

• iodides;
• borates;
• bromides;
• sulfates.

Depending on the formation conditions, the main rock salt deposits are divided into several types:

• underground salt waters;
• brines of modern swimming pools;
• deposits of mineral salts;
• fossil deposits.

Sea salt

It is a mixture of sulfates, carbonates, potassium and sodium chlorides. During its evaporation at temperatures ranging from +20 to +35 °C, the crystallization of less soluble salts initially occurs: magnesium and calcium carbonates, as well as calcium sulfate. Next, soluble chlorides, as well as magnesium and sodium sulfates, precipitate. The crystallization sequence of these inorganic salts can change taking into account the temperature, the rate of the evaporation process, and other conditions.

In industrial quantities, sea salt is obtained from sea water by evaporation. It differs significantly in microbiological and chemical parameters from rock salt; it has a high percentage of iodine, magnesium, potassium, and manganese. Due to the different chemical composition, there are differences in organoleptic characteristics. Sea salt is used in medicine as a remedy for the treatment of skin diseases, such as psoriasis. Among the common products offered in the pharmacy chain, we highlight Dead Sea salt. Purified sea salt is also offered in the food industry as iodized salt.

Regular table salt has weak antiseptic properties. With a percentage of this substance in the range of 10-15 percent, the appearance of putrefactive bacteria can be prevented. It is for these purposes that sodium chloride is added as a preservative to food, as well as other organic masses: wood, glue, leather.

Abuse of salt

According to the World Health Organization, excessive consumption of sodium chloride leads to a significant increase in blood pressure, as a result of which kidney and heart diseases, stomach diseases, and osteoporosis often develop.

Together with other sodium salts, sodium chloride is the cause of eye diseases. Table salt retains fluid inside the body, which leads to increased intraocular pressure and the formation of cataracts.

Instead of a conclusion

Sodium chloride, commonly referred to as table salt, is a widely occurring inorganic mineral in nature. This fact greatly simplifies its use in the food and chemical industries. There is no need to spend time and energy resources on the industrial production of this substance, which affects its cost. In order to prevent an excess of this compound in the body, it is necessary to control the daily consumption of salty foods.

For many millennia, table salt was used almost exclusively for food, to protect food from spoilage, and for pickling vegetables.

Small quantities were used to make leather. To obtain rawhide, loosened skins are treated with a mixture of alum and table salt; salt enhances the tanning effect of alum and dehydrates leather fibers, thereby preventing them from sticking together when dried. For a long time, dyers used table salt to prepare mordants, and soap makers used salt to salt out soap.

This continued almost until the end of the 18th century, until the development of weaving and spinning and the production of cheap fabrics from cotton required soda and chlorine. Table salt turned out to be the most suitable raw material for obtaining these products. In addition, as scientists have established, it could be used in the preparation of Glauber's salt and hydrochloric acid, alkalis, paints and many hundreds of other chemical products. For example, preserving leather is also not complete without the use of table salt: washed hides are dipped in a concentrated salt solution to protect them from rotting.

Like table salt, people became familiar with soda in ancient times. Egyptian craftsmen widely used soda to make glass and degrease wool, and used it in medicine.

Until the beginning of the 19th century. soda was extracted from the soda lakes of Egypt and some other countries, as well as from the ash of plants containing sodium salts in their tissues. In the Middle Ages and later, the Spanish soda “barilla” was famous, which was extracted from a specially bred salsola plant. In France, the source of vegetable soda was the selicor plant; in Scotland it was extracted from algae ash. In the 40s of the XVIII century. French chemist Duhamel de Monceau made an important discovery: he proved that table salt and soda have the same base - sodium. At that time, sodium had not yet been obtained in free form, and scientists thought that soda was not a chemical compound, but an element, like sulfur or phosphorus.

Duhamel's discovery gave scientists the idea of ​​using table salt to produce soda. After all, if nature transforms the salt contained in the soil into soda from soda plants, then why can’t a person carry out a similar metamorphosis in the laboratory?

In 1775, the French Academy of Sciences announced a prize of 12,000 francs for the best method of producing artificial soda. Many methods for producing soda were proposed, but they were all expensive and unprofitable, and chemists continued to find new ways to produce artificial soda.

In 1789, under the blows of the victorious revolution in France, the absolutist monarchy collapsed. From the first days of the birth of the new system, the French people had to defend the gains of the revolution with arms in hand. Surrounded by a ring of hostile states, the young republic was in dire need of ammunition. The basis of the black powder then used was saltpeter; Potash was needed to produce it.

In 1794, a government message appeared in Parisian newspapers: “The Republic needs potash for the manufacture of saltpeter, and soda could in many cases replace potash; nature gives us table salt in immeasurable quantities, from which soda can be extracted.” Many famous French chemists responded to this call - more than 30 proposals were received. Leblanc's method was unanimously recognized as the best.

A mixture of Glauber's salt, limestone (or chalk) and coal is heated in large brick kilns. The mass melts when thoroughly mixed with iron pokers or scrapers. Blue lights appear on the surface of the molten mass, and when they disappear, the alloy is removed from the furnace.

So, as a result of the reaction between the components of the mixture, soda was born. Glauber's salt was obtained by decomposing table salt with sulfuric acid.

Leblanc's invention freed France from foreign dependence, but the fate of the scientist himself was very tragic: in 1806, being in deep poverty, he committed suicide. A talented inventor and scientist was unable to overcome the callousness and greed of capitalist society.

Only some time after Leblanc's death, sulfur production using his method began to develop rapidly. Soda factories appeared in many European countries, producing hundreds of thousands of tons of soda and other chemical products. However, LeBlanc's method had many shortcomings. The most significant of them is the abundance of waste in the form of hydrogen chloride and calcium sulfide.

In the 30s of the last century, a new, simpler and more profitable way of producing soda from table salt was found, but almost 60 years passed before it became widespread. The method is as follows. A concentrated solution of table salt is saturated with ammonia, and then carbon dioxide, a product of calcining limestone in kilns, is passed through the brine under pressure. Ammonia reacts with carbon dioxide and water to form ammonium bicarbonate. The latter enters into an exchange decomposition reaction with sodium chloride and the resulting bicarbonate of soda precipitates, which is filtered and calcined. The result is soda ash, carbon dioxide and water. The gas is again used to saturate the brine. Ammonia is separated from a solution containing ammonium chloride by heating the solution with lime obtained by calcining limestone. Ammonia is also returned to the production cycle.

Thus, with the ammonia method of soda production, the amount of waste is much less than with the Leblanc method. The only waste product is calcium chloride, which finds some industrial use: roads are watered with calcium chloride solutions to destroy dust, it is added to cooling mixtures, it is used in drying gases, dehydrating ether and other organic liquids, and it is used in medicine.

In Russia, the scale of soda production began to expand only in the 80s of the last century, although small soda factories appeared already in the 60s. In 1864, M. P. Prang built a soda factory in Barnaul; At the plant, using the Leblanc method, soda was produced from natural Glauber's salt. The latter was extracted from the Marmyshan lakes, located in the Kulunda steppe 200 km from Barnaul.

The problem of producing soda artificially interested Russian scientists back in the 18th century. Academician Kirill Laxman in 1764, 11 years earlier than Malherbe and 27 years earlier than Leblanc, obtained soda from natural Glauber's salt. He was the first to propose replacing soda and potash with this salt in glass production.

At the same time, Russian scientists studied the possibility of industrial use of table salt. Many of them - Kireevsky, Krupsky, Mendeleev and others - passionately advocated for the creation of domestic soda production. Moreover, even then the production of many important chemical products was associated with it: sulfuric and hydrochloric acids, sodium sulfate, Berthollet salt, chlorine. Mendeleev wrote that “nowadays it is impossible to imagine the development of industry without the consumption of soda.” The appearance of domestic soda on the market, in his opinion, would also provide a service to agriculture. Replacing potash with soda in many industries would contribute to the conservation of forests.

However, the successful development of soda production in Russia was hampered by the high excise tax on table salt. Despite the persistent demands of scientists and industrialists, the tsarist government for a long time did not want to remove the excise tax on salt. Only in 1881 were the shackles that had fettered the emergence of large-scale soda production broken, and the results were not slow to show. Two years later, the first large soda plant was launched in the Northern Urals in Berezniki, built by the merchant Lyubimov together with the Belgian company Solvay. Over the 35 years from the founding of this plant until the Great October Revolution, the Berezniki plant produced 878 thousand g of soda ash.

During the years of Soviet power, the Berezniki plant was reconstructed and expanded, soda production increased several times compared to pre-revolutionary levels. More recently, at the plant, soda, as in tsarist times, was obtained from natural salt brine pumped out from the bowels of the earth. Now it is produced from artificial brine obtained by dissolving waste from potash production. This significantly reduced the cost of soda.

Nowadays, a number of large soda factories operate in the Soviet Union.

The use of soda in the national economy has expanded enormously. Soda is no longer needed only by soap makers, glass makers and textile workers, but also by metallurgists (separation and purification of non-ferrous metals, removal of sulfur from cast iron), dyers, furriers and food processors (production of confectionery and mineral waters, clarification of vegetable oils). A lot of soda is used to soften water used in factories and plants, in steam boilers of locomotives and power plants. Soda serves as a raw material for the production of many chemical products (magnesia, sodium sulfate, sodium fluoride, etc.).

If all the table salt processed throughout the world into soda per year was loaded into freight cars, then the train would stretch from Moscow to Vladivostok.

Most of the table salt consumed by the chemical industry is used to produce soda, caustic soda (caustic soda) and chlorine. Back in 1883, Russian scientists Lidov and Tikhomirov developed an industrial method for producing caustic soda from table salt by electrolysis of its aqueous solutions. In this case, along with caustic soda, chlorine is also produced. Both of these products are very necessary for many sectors of the national economy.

In recent years, salt has not only become a source of chemicals, medicines, fertilizers, and explosives, but has also acquired some new “professions.” It is successfully used to extinguish burning soot and for hardening steel products. It is used to accelerate the melting of ice and to prepare cooling mixtures used in refrigerators. Salt is needed to clarify turpentine and rosin, in the production of the highest grades of glove husky. In the tobacco industry, some types of tobacco are treated with salt to improve its quality.

When constructing artificial reservoirs, the walls and bottom of the reservoirs are usually protected with clay and lined with concrete or asphalt. However, clay does not completely retain water, and concrete and asphalt are too expensive. It was necessary to find some cheap and at the same time sufficiently waterproof material. Academician A. N. Sokolovsky became interested in this problem several years ago. While studying the properties of soils, he noticed that soil saturated with salt does not allow water to pass through. Salt fills the pores of the soil, making it waterproof. Such soils are called solonchaks; often their surface is covered with a thin snow-white coating of salt.

In the steppes of Kazakhstan and Crimea, in the Caspian and Dnieper regions, small lakes form on salt marshes in early spring, which sometimes do not dry out until the end of summer. Such an artificial “lake” was made in Sokolovsky’s laboratory. Soil was poured onto a thin sieve inserted into a funnel and washed with a solution of table salt; an artificial salt marsh was formed. But in natural conditions, the salt marsh is watered by rains and washed by melted spring waters. Therefore, fresh water was poured through the funnel. At first it leaked out quite quickly - about 30-50 drops per minute, but gradually the drops fell less and less, and finally there were none. Water does not seep through a thin layer of soil - only 3-4 mm, which has turned into saline soil.

Therefore, if you cover the walls and bottom of a reservoir with a thin layer of earth soaked in salt, there will be no leakage. The experiments carried out by Sokolovsky on the salinization of irrigation canals in some collective farms in the Volga region turned out to be successful - the leakage of water completely stopped.

Salinization of reservoirs is beginning to be widely used in Ukraine, the Lower Volga region, and Uzbekistan. Salt successfully replaces asphalt and concrete. In addition, treating soils with a salt solution is much cheaper than covering them with asphalt or concrete. After all, for salinization you can take dirty, inedible salt, waste from some chemical plants.

Salt provides invaluable services to builders. For example, in winter, during the construction of the Bratsk hydroelectric power station, the clay soil froze and turned into hard stone. Even excavators and bulldozers could not cope with the frozen soil. The Leningrad Civil Engineering Institute has developed a method to protect clay soil from freezing. Plots of land where ditches or pits need to be dug in winter are thickly sprinkled with table salt in the fall, and then even in the deepest frosts the earth remains soft.

Salt is a substance of inexhaustible possibilities. There are already more than a thousand different ways of using it. And how many of them, and how unexpected, will appear in our atomic age!..

Rock salt is a sedimentary mineral consisting of sodium chloride and impurities. The rock has another name - halite, which in everyday life is known as table salt.

In the conditions of the deposit, it consists of stones, which, after processing and cleaning, acquire the usual appearance of white powder. The rock is of ancient origin. The ancient Greeks associated its properties with the salty taste of sea water.

Main characteristics

The chemical formula of table salt is NaCl, the compound contains 61% chlorine and 39% sodium.

In its pure form, the substance is very rarely found in natural conditions. In its purified form, rock salt can be clear, opaque, or white with a glassy sheen. Depending on the additional impurities included in the composition, the compound can be colored:

Rock salt is quite fragile, absorbs moisture well and has a salty taste. The mineral dissolves quickly in water. The melting point is 800 degrees. During combustion, the flame acquires an orange-yellow hue.

Rock salt appears as a cubic crystal or stalactite with a coarse grain structure.

The formation of halite occurs during the compaction of layers that formed in past geological periods and represents large massifs.

The origin of rock salt is conventionally divided into the following types:

Mineral deposits

Rock salt is a mineral of exogenous origin, deposits of which were formed many millions of years ago in a hot climate. Mineral deposits can form when salt lakes and shallow waters dry out. Small amounts of halite may form during volcanic activity or soil salinization in arid areas as a result of human activity.

When groundwater with a high salt content is close to the ground, natural salinization of the soil can also occur. As moisture evaporates, a thin layer of rock forms on the soil surface.

Areas with high moisture evaporation and low water inflow are characterized by mineralization of the soil layer. With high evaporation, compounds that form in different layers of the soil appear on the surface. When a salt crust forms on the top layer of soil, plant growth and the vital activity of living organisms stop.

Currently, the deposits are located in Russia in the Urals in the Solikamsk and Sol-Iletsk deposits, in Irkutsk, Orenburg, the Arkhangelsk region, the Volga region and the Astrakhan region. In Ukraine, halite mining is carried out in the Donetsk region and Transcarpathia. A significant amount of minerals is mined in Louisiana, Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

Extraction methods

Mineral extraction on an industrial scale is carried out in several ways:

Due to the properties of rock salt, its use is not limited to food consumption. A person cannot do without table salt. Halite is in demand in technological processes in various industries. It is widely used not only in the food industry for preserving meat, fish and vegetables, as it is a cheap preservative.

In the chemical industry, the compound is necessary for the production of hydrochloric acid, which is in demand in various sectors of the economy.

In metallurgy, the mineral is used as a coolant for hardening, as well as for the production of a number of compounds of non-ferrous metals. It is part of the electrolyte.

The pharmaceutical industry uses halite for the manufacture of drugs and injection solutions.

In the tanning industry, the compound is used as a tannin in the processing of animal skins.

Medicinal properties

Sodium compound is part of the body's internal environment, which ensures the normal functioning of the circulatory system and the conduction of impulses along nerve fibers.

Many nations have a belief that if you sprinkle salt on a cross before entering a house, it will protect you from people with evil thoughts. It was highly appreciated by many peoples; it is no coincidence that spilled salt became a sign of trouble or quarrel. Galite is able to enhance good intentions and return evil ones multiplied several times.

Magicians and sorcerers consider spells for love and good luck using table salt to be effective. A jar of table salt can absorb someone else's negative energy and protect the owner from the evil eye and damage.