Category: Applications

Commodity industries

With USA pricing at $30 per metric tonne in 1970, in 2006 up to $90 per metric tonne for salt cake quality and $130 for better grades, sodium sulfate is a very cheap material. The largest use is as filler in powdered home laundry detergents, consuming approx. 50% of...

Wood Pulp

Another formerly major use for sodium sulfate, notably in the USA and Canada, is in the Kraft process for the manufacture of wood pulp. Organics present in the “black liquor” from this process are burnt to produce heat, needed to drive the reduction of sodium sulfate to sodium sulfide....

Glass Industry

The glass industry provides another significant application for sodium sulfate, as second largest application in Europe. Sodium sulfate is used as a fining agent, to help remove small air bubbles from molten glass. It fluxes the glass, and prevents scum formation of the glass melt during refining. The glass...

Small scale applications

In the laboratory, anhydrous sodium sulfate is widely used as an inert drying agent, for removing traces of water from organic solutions. It is more efficient, but slower-acting, than the similar agent magnesium sulfate. It is only effective below about 30 °C, but it can used with a variety...