Sodium nitrate is the
chemical compound with the
formula NaNO
3. This
salt, also known as "Chile saltpeter" or "Peru saltpeter" (to distinguish it from ordinary saltpeter,
potassium nitrate), is a white solid which is very soluble in
water. The mineral form is also known as
nitratine or
soda niter.
Sodium nitrate is used as an ingredient in
fertilizers, pyrotechnics,as an ingredient in
smoke bombs, as a
food preservative, and as a
solid rocket propellant, as well as in
glass and
pottery enamels; the compound has been mined extensively for those purposes.
The first shipment of Chile saltpeter to Europe arrived in England in 1820 or 1825, but didn't find any buyers and was dumped at sea in order to avoid customs toll. With time, however, the mining of South American saltpeter became a profitable business (in 1859, England alone consumed 47,000 metric tons
) that
Chile fought against the allies
Peru and
Bolivia and took over the richest deposits in the
War of the Pacific 1879-1884. The world's largest natural deposits of
caliche ore were in the
Atacama desert of
Chile, and many deposits were mined for over a century, until the 1940s, when its value declined dramatically in the first decades of the twentieth century (see
Haber process).
Chile still has the largest reserves of caliche, with active mines in such locations as Pedro de Valdivia, Maria Elena and Pampa Blanca, and there it used to be called "white gold". Sodium nitrate,
potassium nitrate,
sodium sulfate and
iodine are all obtained by the processing of caliche. The former Chilean saltpeter mining communities of
Humberstone and Santa Laura were declared Unesco World Heritage sites in 2005.
Sodium nitrate is also synthesized industrially by neutralizing
nitric acid with
soda ash.
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