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help - How do I know if I have anhydrous MgSO2?

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Espiridion

Espiridion

--who.??..ME??--
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Capt.Caveman did a 500 deg bake(F) for 45 min. Roughly 20 gm Epsom salt. Tried a bit in a tiny puddle of water expecting an absorption/reaction. Nothing. I thought this was the stuff used in diapers. Which the capt. has plenty of.

Is this a no-brainer I'm trying to muddle up?


J
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Anhydrous Magnesium sulfate absorbs roughly its own weight in water and conversely hydrated magnesium sulfate loses half of its weight when dehydrated!

Which means a successful total dehydration should make it 50% lighter. But of course complete dehydration is absolutely no necessary for it to be able to absorb water.

Hope that helps!
 
When you buy magnesium sulfate, it should look sort of like white crystal chips (SWIM's epsom salts looked almost like white steel-cut oats)... After baking it, the anhydrous magnesium sulfate will sort of congeal into these big white sheets that easily break apart. To get it to absorb water SWIM had to crush up the white sheets into powder.

Also, when SWIM was adding the AMS, he could simply not tell if it had absorbed all the possible water. SWIM's only choice was to add AMS to excess, until there couldn't possibly be any more water to absorb.
 
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