Sodium nitrate
chemical compound
Sodium nitrate is the chemical compound with the formula NaNO3. This alkali metal nitrate salt is also known as Chile saltpeter (large deposits of which were historically mined in Chile) to distinguish it from ordinary saltpeter, potassium nitrate. The mineral form is also known as nitratine, nitratite or soda niter.
Sodium nitrate is a white deliquescent solid very soluble in water. It is a readily available source of the nitrate anion (NO3−), which is useful in several reactions carried out on industrial scales for the production of fertilizers, pyrotechnics, smoke bombs and other explosives, glass and pottery enamels, food preservatives (esp. meats), and solid rocket propellant. It has been mined extensively for these purposes.
History
An early scientific account of the South American deposits was published in 1821 by the Peruvian mineralogist Mariano Eduardo de Rivero y Ustáriz, who analyzed a sample from the Tarapacá district, then part of Peru. The specimen had been supplied by Pedro Fuentes and was held in the Paris laboratory of the mineralogist René Just Haüy. Rivero concluded that the mineral could be used for industrial purposes like glassmaking, fertilizer, and gunpowder, although commercial work did not begin until 1831.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sodium nitrate” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.