Great Salt Lake

Great Salt Lake Greek fire Green acids Green beer... 

United States Great Salt Lake, Utah 0.006 0.8 0.4 7.0 7... 

Occurrence. Magnesium bromide [7789-48-2] MgBr2, is found in seawater, some mineral springs, natural brines, inland seas and lakes such as the Dead Sea and the Great Salt Lake, and salt deposits such as the Stassfurt deposits. In seawater, it is the primary source of bromine (qv). By the action of chlorine gas upon seawater or seawater bitterns, bromine is formed (see Chemicals frombrine). 

Potassium sulfate is produced in Sicily by controlled decomposition of the natural mineral kainite, KCl-MgS04-2.75H2 0 (26). This salt is first converted to schoenite in an aqueous solution from a potassium sulfate conversion step. A similar process is used in the United States. Kainite is obtained as the potassium feedstock by stage evaporation of Great Salt Lake bitterns (see Chemicals frombrines). 

Sodium is not found ia the free state ia nature because of its high chemical reactivity. It occurs naturally as a component of many complex minerals and of such simple ones as sodium chloride, sodium carbonate, sodium sulfate, sodium borate, and sodium nitrate. Soluble sodium salts are found ia seawater, mineral spriags, and salt lakes. Principal U.S. commercial deposits of sodium salts are the Great Salt Lake Seades Lake and the rock salt beds of the Gulf Coast, Virginia, New York, and Michigan (see Chemicals frombrine). Sodium-23 is the only naturally occurring isotope. The six artificial radioisotopes (qv) are Hsted ia Table 1 (see Sodium compounds). 

Nearly all manufacturers of sodium sulfate use Glauber s salt ia an iatermediate process step. Glauber s salt is then converted to anhydrous sodium sulfate. In 1990, there were only three significant producers of natural sodium sulfate O ark-Mahoning (Texas), North American Chemical (California), and Great Salt Lake Minerals (Utah). 

At Great Salt Lake Minerals Corporation (Utah), solar-evaporated brines are winter-chilled to —3° C in solar ponds. At this low temperature, a relatively pure Glauber s salt precipitates. Ponds are drained and the salt is loaded into tmcks and hauled to a processing plant. At the plant, Glauber s salt is dissolved in hot water. The resulting Hquor is filtered to remove insolubles. The filtrate is then combined with soHd-phase sodium chloride, which precipitates anhydrous sodium sulfate of 99.5—99.7% purity. Great Salt Lake Minerals Corporation discontinued sodium sulfate production in 1993 when it transferred production and sales to North American Chemical Corporation (Trona, California). 

Gieat Salt Lake Minerals Coip. 45 Ogden, Utah Great Salt Lake brine... 

SpecificationforMnhjdrous Sodium Sulfate Great Salt Lake Minerals Corp., Ogden, Utah, Jan. 1996. 

Great Salt Lake, Utah, is the largest terminal lake in the United States. From its brine, salt, elemental magnesium, magnesium chloride, sodium sulfate, and potassium sulfate ate produced. Other well-known terminal lakes ate Qinghai Lake in China, Tu2 Golu in Turkey, the Caspian Sea and Atal skoje in the states of the former Soviet Union, and Urmia in Iran. There ate thousands of small terminal lakes spread across most countries of the world. Most of these lakes contain sodium chloride, but many contain ions of magnesium, calcium, potassium, boron, lithium, sulfates, carbonates, and nitrates. 

Solar salt operations can be found along the shores of the Great Salt Lake and in the San Francisco Bay area (6—10). Salt production from these areas represents 10% of the total salt produced in the United States. 

In 1981, seven faciUties extracted minerals from Great Salt Lake brine, but flooding in 1983 and 1984 reduced the number to five. By 1992, four companies were operating. AH Great Salt Lake mineral extracting faciUties have solar ponds as the first stage in processing minerals from brine. 

Fig. 1. Abbreviated flow sheet of the multiproducts of Great Salt Lake Minerals Corporation.

Occurrence. Brine found in Seades Lake, California is the only brine source where boron is produced commercially. Other brine bodies such as the Great Salt Lake or brine from thermal weUs at the Salton Sea have been considered but have not been exploited. Brines at the Salar de Atacama in Chile also contain boron, but it is not presently extracted. 

Occurrence. Numerous brines contain lithium in minor concentrations. Commercially valuable natural brines are located at Silver Peak, Nevada (400 ppm) (40,41), and at Seades Lake, California (50 ppm) (42,43). Great Salt Lake brine contains 40 ppm and is a source not yet exploited. Seawater contains less than 0.2 ppm. Lithium production started at Silver Peak in the 1970s. The concentration of lithium in the brine is diminishing, and now the principal production occurs from brine in the Salar de Atacama, Chile. 

Magnesium is removed from brines of the Great Salt Lake in the form of magnesium chloride. This is then used to make elemental magnesium, dust suppressants, and bischofite flake. Magnesium chloride is also used in drilling mud, ion-exchange resins, oxi-chloral cements, fertilizers, and miscellaneous industrial uses. 

Great Salt Lake Minerals Corp. near Ogden, Utah, produces potassium sulfate and several other products from Great Salt Lake brines. Presently 81 X 10 (20,000 acres) is divided into 80 solar ponds with 81 million m of expansion scheduled in 1992. Two years are requked to process brine... 

Economic Aspects and Uses. Total world production of potassium products is 29,000,000 tons per year (65). Potassium chloride is removed from brine at Moab, and Wendover, Utah, and at Seades Lake, California. Potassium sulfate is made from Great Salt Lake brine by Great Salt Lake Minerals Corp., which is the largest producer of solar potassium sulfate in the wodd. Combined, these U.S. faciUties stiU produce a relatively small percentage of potash fertilizers in the wodd. Production from the Dead Sea, for example, is 10 times greater than production of potassium from brines in the United States. More than 95% of all the potassium produced is used in fertilizer blends. The remainder is converted to other potassium chemicals for industdal use (see Potassium compounds). 

Occurrence. In the United States natural sodium sulfate brines are found at Seades Lake, at the shallow castUe formation undedying Terry and Gains counties in Texas, and at the Great Salt Lake. 

Economic Aspects and Uses. About 50% of all sodium sulfate produced ia the United States is from brine. In 1988, 410,000 tons were produced from brine. Most of the production is from North American Chemicals Co. 02ark-Mahoning at Brownfield and Seagraves, Texas produce 25% and Great Salt Lake Minerals and Chemicals Corp. produce 5%. 

Great Salt Lake Chemicals" in ECT2nd ed., Suppl. VoL, pp. 438—467, by G. Flint, Great Salt Lake Minerals and Chemical Corp. "Chemicals from Brine" in ECT 3rd ed., Vol. 5, pp. 375—393, by R. B. Tippin, Great Salt Lake Minerals and Chemicals Corp., and P. E. Muehlberg, The Dow Chemical Company. 

Sodium, 22 700 ppm (2.27%) is the seventh most abundant element in crustal rocks and the fifth most abundant metal, after Al, Fe, Ca and Mg. Potassium (18 400 ppm) is the next most abundant element after sodium. Vast deposits of both Na and K salts occur in relatively pure form on all continents as a result of evaporation of ancient seas, and this process still continues today in the Great Salt Lake (Utah), the Dead Sea and elsewhere. Sodium occurs as rock-salt (NaCl) and as the carbonate (trona), nitrate (saltpetre), sulfate (mirabilite), borate (borax, kemite), etc. Potassium occurs principally as the simple chloride (sylvite), as the double chloride KCl.MgCl2.6H2O (camallite) and the anhydrous sulfate K2Mg2(S04)3 (langbeinite). There are also unlimited supplies of NaCl in natural brines and oceanic waters ( 30kgm ). Thus, it has been calculated that rock-salt equivalent to the NaCl in the oceans of the world would occupy... 

Chlorine is the twentieth most abundant element in crustal rocks where it occurs to the extent of 126 ppm (cf. nineteenth V, 136 ppm, and twenty-first Cr, 122 ppm). The vast evaporite deposits of NaCl and other chloride minerals have already been described (pp. 69, 73). Dwarfing these, however, are the inconceivably vast reserves in ocean waters (p. 69) where more than half the total average salinity of 3.4 wt% is due to chloride ions (1.9 wt%). Smaller quantities, though at higher concentrations, occur in certain inland seas and in subterranean brine wells, e.g. the Great Salt Lake, Utah (23% NaCl) and the Dead Sea, Israel (8.0% NaCl, 13.0% MgCU, 3.5% CaCU). 

Crystallization takes place when the solute slowly comes out of solution as crystals, perhaps as the solvent evaporates. For example, salt crystals that form when water evaporates line the shores of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. In precipitation, a solute comes out of solution so rapidly that a single crystal does not have time to form. Instead, the solute forms a finely divided powder called a precipitate. Precipitation is often almost instantaneous (Fig. G.4). 

The evaporation of water from a saturated solution leaves a solution in which the ion concentrations exceed the solubility limit. To return to equilibrium, the salt must precipitate from the solution. Evaporation is used to mine sodium chloride and other salts from the highly salty waters of inland seas such as Great Salt Lake in Utah and Israel s Dead Sea. 

There are many natural sources of chlorine compounds, which is not surprising considering that it is the 20th most abundant element. Salt and salt water are widely available the Great Salt Lake contains 23% salt, and the Dead Sea contains about 30%. Because salt is so abundant, most minerals that contain chlorine are not important sources for economic reasons. Bromine is found in some salt brines and in the sea, as are some iodine compounds. 

Tomascak PB, Hemming NG, Pedone VA(2001) Lithium, boron, and strontium isotope constraints on solute sources for the Great Salt Lake, Utah. Eleventh VM Goldschmidt Conf Abst, LPI Contribution 1088, Lunar Planetary Institute, 3758... 

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