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BORAX (sodium pyroborate or sodium bi...

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 243 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BORAX (sodium pyroborate or sodium biborate)  , Na2B4O7, a substance which appears in commerce under two forms, namely "
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common " or prismatic borax, Na2B4O7.10H2O, and " jewellers' " or octahedral borax, Na2B4O7.5H2O . It is to be noted that the
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term " borax " was used by the alchemists in a very vague manner, and is therefore not to be taken as meaning the substance now specifically known by the name . Prismatic borax is found widely distributed as a natural product (see below,
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Mineralogy) in Tibet, and in
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Canada, Peru and Transylvania, while the bed of Borax Lake, near Clear Lake in California, is occupied by a large mass of crystallized borax, which is
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fit for use by the assayer without undergoing any preliminary
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purification . The supply of borax is, however, mainly derived from the boric acid of Tuscany, which is fused in a reverberatory
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furnace with
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half its
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weight of sodium carbonate, and the mass after cooling is extracted with warm
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water . An alternative method is to dissolve sodium carbonate in lead-lined steam-heated pans, and add the boric acid gradually; the solution then being concentrated until the borax crystallizes . Borax is also prepared from the naturally occurring calcium borate, which is mixed in a finely divided condition with the requisite quantity of soda ash; the mixture is fused, extracted with water and concentrated until the solution commences to crystallize . From a supersaturated aqueous solution of borax, the pentahydrate, Na2B407.5H20, is deposited when evaporation takes place at somewhat high temperatures . The same
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hydrate can be prepared by dissolving borax in water until the solution has a specific gravity of 1.246 and then allowing the solution to cool . The pentahydrate is deposited between 79° C. and 56° C.; below this temperature the decahydrate or',ordinary borax, Na,B407.10H20, is deposited . Crystals of ordinary borax swell up to a very
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great extent on
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heating, losing their water of crystallization and melting to a clear white glass . The crystals of octahedral borax fuse more easily than those of the prismatic form and are less liable to split when heated, so that they are preferable for soldering or fluxing . Fused borax dissolves many metallic oxides, forming complex borates which in many cases show (characteristic colours .

Its use in soldering depends on the fact that

solder only adheres to the
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surface of an untarnished metal, and consequently a little borax is placed on the surface of the metal and heated by the soldering iron in order to remove any superficial film of
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oxide . It is also used for
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glazing pottery, in glass-making and the glazing of
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linen . Boric acid (q.v.) being only a weak acid, its salts readily undergo hydrolytic
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dissociation in aqueous solution, and this
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property can be readily shown with a concentrated aqueous solution of borax, for by adding litmus and then just sufficient acetic acid to turn the litmus red, the addition of a large
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volume of water to the solution changes the colour back to blue again . The boric acid being scarcelyionized gives only a very small quantity of hydrogen ions, whilst the
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base (sodium hydroxide) produced by the hydrolysis occasioned by the dilution of the solution, being a " strong base," is highly ionized and gives a comparatively large amount of hydroxyl ions . In the solution, therefore, there is now an excess of hydroxyl ions; consequently it has an alkaline reaction and the litmus turns blue . Mineralogy.—The Tibetan
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mineral deposits have been known since very early times, and formerly the crude material was exported to
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Europe, under the name of tincal, for the preparation of pure borax and other boron salts . The most
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westerly of the Tibetan deposits are in the lake-plain of Pugha on the Rulangchu, a tributary of the
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Indus, at an
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elevation of 15,000 ft.: here the impure borax (sohaga) occurs over an
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area of about 2 sq. m., and is covered by a saline efflorescence; successive crops are obtained by the
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action of rain and snow and subsequent evaporation . Deposits of purer material (chit 'sale or water borax) occur at the lakes of
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Rudok, situated to the east of the Pugha
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district; also still farther to the east at the great lakes Tengri Nor, north of Lhasa, and several other places . More recently, the extensive deposits of borates (chiefly, however, of calcium; see
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COLEMANITE) in the Mohave
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desert on the
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borders of California and Nevada, and in the Atacama desert in South
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America, have been the chief commercial
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sources of boron compounds . The boron contained in solution in the salt lakes has very probably been supplied by hot springs and solfataras of volcanic origin, such as those which at the
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present day charge the waters of the lagoons in Tuscany with boric acid . The deposits formed by evaporation from these lakes and marshes or salines, are mixtures of borates, various alkaline salts (sodium carbonate, sulphate, chloride),
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gypsum, &c . In the mud of the lakes and in the surrounding marshy
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soil
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fine isolated crystals of borax are frequently found .

For example, crystals up to 7 in. in length and weighing a

pound each have been found in large numbers at Borax Lake in Lake county, and at Borax Lake in
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San Bernardino county, both in California . Borax crystallizes with ten molecules of water, the composition of the crystals being Na2B4O7+10H2O . The crystals belong to the
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monoclinic
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system, and it is a curious fact that in habit and angles they closely resemble
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pyroxene (a silicate of calcium, magnesium and iron) . There is a perfect cleavage parallel to the orthopinacoid and less perfect cleavages parallel to the faces of the prism . The mineral is transparent to opaque and white, sometimes greyish, bluish or greenish in colour . Hardness 2–21; sp. gr . 1.69-1.72 . The
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optical characters are interesting, because of the striking crossed dispersion of the optic axes, of which phenomenon borax affords the best example . The optic figure seen in convergent polarized
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light through a section cut parallel to the
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plane of symmetry of a borax crystal is symmetrical only with respect to the central point . The plane of the optic axes for red light is inclined at 2° to that for blue light, and the angle between the optic axes themselves is 3° greater for red than for blue light .

End of Article: BORAX (sodium pyroborate or sodium biborate)
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