Muriate of Potash

[Yankee]

Hi everyone,

In researching muriate of potash I came across a thread that says its nothing but pure KCl. I work in an electroencephalography (dEEG) laboratory and we often use KCl as an electrolyte (medium) to measure electrical brain activity at the scalp. Can anyone confirm that muriate of potash is nothing but soluble KCl? I've never heard it called this, but if it is then oh boy do we have a lot of it! I'd like to use it in a tank I am about to dirt (I already scored some crushed dolomite/dolostone from the Geology department). Thanks!

[Darkblade48]

Potassium chloride was historically called (its trivial name was) muriate of potash.

If you need some dry potassium chloride, just take your solutions of KCl and evaporate off the water.

Try to get as high a molar solution as you can so that you don't need litres upon litres of the stuff.

[Yankee]

Originally Posted by Darkblade48

Potassium chloride was historically called (its trivial name was) muriate of potash.

If you need some dry potassium chloride, just take your solutions of KCl and evaporate off the water.

Try to get as high a molar solution as you can so that you don't need litres upon litres of the stuff.

Thanks for the clarification! I was figuring that's what the case was. Luckily we have the pure powder form of KCl, so no evaporation needed! We find it easier to mix our solutions right before we apply the electrodes instead of keeping premixed solutions since cold liquid + participant in the winter = bad experience and its difficult to keep evaporation to a minimum (resulting in varying concentrations of our mixes) which is essential to keep everything "standardized".