Mule Team

The United States and Turkey are the world s largest producers of boron.1 Economically important sources are from the ores rasorite (kernite) and tincal, which are both found in the Mojave Desert of California, with borax being the most important source there. The famous 20-Mule-Team Borax, now a part of chemistry folklore, originates from the time when teams of 20 mules used to haul colemanite from Furnace Creek in Death Valley 166 miles south to Mojave. Elemental boron in its impure form can be obtained by the reduction of the oxide B203 by magnesium, and in the pure form by the reduction of BC13 by hydrogen on hot filaments.1... 

Borax has been used as a soldering flux for many centuries. It was hauled from the mines in wagons pulled by teams of 20 mules which is the basis for "20-Mule Team" borax that is used in laundry products. 

Borax in California. The great deposits of borax and other soluble salts in San Bernardino County, California, were discovered by Dennis Searle and E. M. Skillings on February 14, 1873. In the following year Arthur Robottom of London explored the borax regions of Nevada and California, travelled with a mule team over a very rough country at the rate of from 12 to 14 miles per day, and arrived at length. .. at the... 

Less than a hundred years ago, a mineral called borax, containing the element boron, was carted out of Death Valley in California by twenty-mule teams — about the slowest transportation you can think of. Someday, boron may be put in zip-fuels for space missiles — the fastest form of transportation imaginable. Boron has the ability (as does carbon) to... 

Parkinson, G. Borax s new image Beyond the forty mule team. Chem. Eng. 1996, 103(10), 50. 

Notes Borax is available as borax, pentahydrate, but most commonly as borax, decahydrate, the form used in photographic formulas. The old term for decahydrate is crystalline. Borax, decahydrate, and 20 Mule Team Borax are one and the same. 

Another substitution for sodium metaborate, octahydrate is to use 9 5 grams of sodium hydroxide and 45.4 grams of borax, decahydrate in water to make 1.0 liter. This is equivalent to a 10% solution of sodium metaborate, octahydrate. This can be made from Red Devil Lye and 20 Mule Team Borax and safely used in formulas as a substitute (20.0ml of a 10% solution = 2.0 grams 25.0ml = 2.5 grams etc.). 

A mule-team convoy carrying opium through northern Thailand (1967)... 

The name borax is derived from the Persian word borak, meaning white. Humans have used it for centuries. The Egyptians used borax as a flux for soldering, and this is still one of the more important uses for it. Borax was probably first imported to Europe by Marco Polo around 1300, and it was used in trade for many years afterward. However, borax was not used extensively until the deposits in California were discovered in the 1860s. Originally, the borax was removed from these deposits using mule teams, hence the name 20-mule team borax. 

An old ad from The Saturday Evening Post for Boraxo, a hand-cleaning product containing sodium tetraborate (NaB407). Extensive natural deposits of borax (Na2B407 10H20) found in saline lakes near Death Valley, California, were hauled to a factory in wagons pulled by teams of 20 mules-hence the name 20 Mule Team Borax. 

Perhaps the best known commercial form of sodium tetraborate is called Twenty-Mule-Team Borax. The name comes from the fact that the first borax mines in California were located 165 miles from the nearest train station in Mojave, California. The mined borax was transported that distance in wagons pulled by 20 mules. Each wagon cost 900 to build, weighed 14,500 kilograms (32,000 pounds), and had wheels 2... 

The chemical formula of borax is Na2B4O7T0 H2O. It is found and mined in places such as Death Valley, California. As a chemical compound, it gained fame for its use as a laundry soap with the brand name, 20-Mule Team Borax. But from an industrial perspective, the conversion of borax to boric acid through the following reaction is particularly important ... 

Death Valley is below sea level, so the hard work of bringing the borax out of the valley and over the mountains required large mule teams. There s even a 20-mule team museum in Boron, CA. 

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