Industrial Uses of Sodium Acetate

Sodium acetate, CH3COONa, is a sodium salt of acetic acid. Often called acetic acid, sodium acetate anhydrous, or sodium salt, this odorless, white granular powder has plenty of far-ranging uses throughout industries. For this reason, industrial chemical supplier Bell Chem keeps plenty on hand to satisfy customer demand.  

Cleaning
Impurities such as stains, rust, or scale on metal surfaces quickly vanish when with cleaning sodium acetate. 

Concrete
Hygroscopic sodium acetate seeps into the crevices on the surface of concrete, sealing it against the elements. Water damage is the scourge of the construction industry’s concrete usage, and the ability to seal concrete against water saves time and money.

Food and Beverage
Sodium acetate has long been the seasoning that gives potato chips that pungent salt and vinegar flavor. Because it is an acid, the addition of sodium acetate during food production can lower or stabilize a product’s pH. Another positive trait of its acidity is the negative reaction of bacterial growth in the presence of sodium acetate. It is, therefore, a great preservative. The beneficial preservation properties of sodium acetate are also dominant in pickling foods. Similar to general food use, pickling uses sodium acetate to enhance flavors and preserve foods, but in much larger quantities. 

Laboratory
The growth of bacteria often requires a source of carbon. Sodium acetate fills that role while also catalyzing ethanol precipitation yield when isolating DNA. Sodium acetate is commonly used as a reagent in molecular biology as well as biochemistry. 

Medical
An intravenous transfusion of sodium acetate is recommended for electrolyte replenishment. This occurs frequently with patients undergoing dialysis. Hyponatremic patients are often given sodium acetate to stabilize falling sodium levels. Reusable heating pads and hand warmers rely on a supersaturated solution of sodium acetate and water surrounding a metal disc.  

Textile
Aniline dyes, derived from coal tar extracts, are often paired with sodium acetate during the textile dyeing process. Sodium acetate also acts as a photoresist, or light-sensitive material, that stimulates patterned coating in photoengraving and photolithography.  

Bell Chem is an industrial chemical supplier based in Longwood, FL (just north of Orlando) with hundreds of products such as sodium acetate stocked in its 50,000+ square-foot warehouse. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.

Vegetable Glycerin

Vegetable glycerine (C3H5(OH)3) is an incredibly versatile ingredient that fills a role in almost every industry. Food ingredient supplier Bell Chem stocks this clear, sweet-tasting, odorless, and viscous liquid for industries ranging from foods and beverages to dynamite and biodiesel. 

With a name derived from the Greek word glukeros (sweet), it is no wonder vegetable glycerin is often added to items we consume. But where does this important ingredient originate? Vegetable glycerin’s main components include coconut, palm, and soybean oil. When any of these oils are heated with a strong base, such as lye, the glycerin breaks its bonds with the fatty acids forming triglycerides. Vegetable fat then mixes with water to form glycerin. And a water-soluble vegetable fat has hundreds of clever uses. Take a look at some of the industries vegetable glycerin is utilized in: 

Cosmetics
The creamy feel of lotions, makeup, and deodorants is often because vegetable glycerin is an ingredient.

Foods and Beverages
Ice cream left too long in the freezer forms ice crystals. Add glycerol while processing frozen foods and your foods will last longer. Vegetable glycerin acts as a humectant, solvent, sweetener, and thickener to canned foods, bakery goods, processed fruits, and energy bars.

Health and Wellness
Glycerin is touted as being a moisturizer for overly dry skin. It also is said to give skin more resiliency. For skin, glycerin has been proven to soothe irritation and is often applied to the skin to protect against natural elements, such as wind and bitter cold, as an aid in wound healing and discomfort, and as a barrier against topical microbial infection.

Industrial
When partnered with sulfuric acid and nitric acid, glycerin becomes nitroglycerin, the liquid portion of dynamite. On a lighter note, candles and soaps also contain vegetable glycerin.

Pharmaceuticals
Vegetable glycerin is often an ingredient in stool softeners and other constipation aids since it eases the passage of foods through the digestive system. Added to cough syrups, the viscous fluid coats irritated passages with a sweet flavor. In toothpaste, vegetable glycerin prevents toothpaste from hardening inside the container and has been approved by the FDA as an anti-cavity drug.

Bell Chem is a food and ingredient supplier based in Longwood, FL (just north of Orlando) with hundreds of products stocked in its 50,000+ square-foot warehouse. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.

Dextrose in the Food Industry

Most of the dextrose commonly manufactured today is hydrolyzed from corn and wheat starches, or the cellulose of woody plants. These high-energy products are refined into the dextrose we recognize in thousands of food and beverage brands worldwide. Your food ingredient supplier, Bell Chem, highlights some of dextrose’s major roles in the food industry. 

• The main role of dextrose is to provide energy to the body’s cells. In this respect, it is added to nutritional supplements and infant formulas to stimulate the metabolic process of cells. Many supplements that address the body’s peak energy demands contain dextrose to provide an almost immediate burst of energy.

• Though dextrose is a sweetener, it adds a flavor other than sweet to products. Dextrose provides a cool, fruity flavor to confectionary goods. It is often noted that a food’s aroma is enhanced by dextrose as well. 

• Yeast utilizes dextrose for their metabolic functions, so adding dextrose to bakery products will increase yeast activity in a shorter amount of time; hence, breads rise higher and doughnuts are fluffier. In the beer and wine industry, dextrose’s ability to feed yeast accelerates the rate of fermentation.

• Dextrose has an increased osmotic pressure compared to other sweeteners, which lengthens the shelf life of products when it is an ingredient.

• Processed meats are often cured with nitrate and salt. These products are not always evenly distributed, leaving areas of pungent, overly salty meat. Adding dextrose diffuses the salt more evenly and improves the overall quality of flavor and color.

• Over-the-counter dextrose tablets or gel supplements given to diabetic patients quickly compensate for low blood sugar levels. Intravenous drips are frequently dextrose-based to sustain normal body functions while patients are unable to ingest food or their health situations prevent them from eating.

Bell Chem is a food ingredient supplier based in Longwood, FL (just north of Orlando) with hundreds of products such as dextrose stocked in its 50,000+ square-foot warehouse. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.

Using Hydrogen Peroxide

The hydrogen peroxide present in a traditional household’s medicine cabinet has amazing industrial-strength abilities. Bell Chem’s customers find it is a must-have for wastewater treatment, pools, and lakes, and has strong disinfecting properties in food and beverage, hospital, and laboratory settings. Read more to discover how hydrogen peroxide from your water treatment chemical supplier, Bell Chem, can contribute to the success of your business.

Environmental Control
Coupled with iron (II) sulfate, hydrogen peroxide forms the well-known Fenton’s reagent. Fenton’s treats industrial waste from drinking water, wastewater, soils, filamentous bulk, et cetera.

Biological Treatment Systems
Organisms that synthesize wastes during metabolic activity keep ponds and wastewater treatment plants healthy. When these organisms lack oxygen (excess biological oxygen demand, or BOD), the delicate balance can plunge water into a murky, unhealthy state. Hydrogen peroxide quickly addresses this issue with a burst of oxygen to feed bacteria and nematodes as they decompose the waste in wastewater and other aquatic environments. An unhealthy water system often reeks of pungent waste, so a bonus of hydrogen peroxide is the control of hydrogen sulfide release and other noxious gaseous odors.

 Gas Scrubbing
Odor control on an industrial scale is a necessity, and hydrogen peroxide is recognized as the chemical of choice for oil refineries, solid waste landfills, paper manufacturing, and chemical processing. 

Cooling Water Systems
Cooling loops, process water loops, and heat exchangers rapidly collect slime and organic matter. Hydrogen peroxide removes biological contaminants leaving clean, safe machinery.

Wastewater Treatment
Pretreating wastewater with hydrogen peroxide reduces BOD as well as chemical oxygen demand (COD) before water is refined. The result is fewer overall harsh chemicals to successfully treat water. A particular issue with wastewater treatment is the reduction of sulfur compounds, such as hydrogen sulfide, thiosulfate, and mercaptans. Hydrogen sulfide quickly and inexpensively negates these compounds. 

Heavy Metal Flocculant
Ferrous iron and other metals present in industrial processes and wastewater are dangerous. Hydrogen peroxide binds these metals so the larger particulate matter is more easily filtered.

 Food and Beverage
Hydrogen peroxide is recognized as aseptic and, as such, is often used to sterilize machinery and prepping areas for packaging foods. Natural foods, such as sugars, oils, and waxes, add hydrogen peroxide to safely whiten their final products.

Bell Chem is a water treatment chemical supplier based in Longwood, FL (just north of Orlando) with hundreds of products stocked in its 50,000+ square-foot warehouse. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.

Industry Uses of Caustic Soda

It seems contradictory that a highly toxic, crystalline, alkaline chemical such as sodium hydroxide (also known as caustic soda and lye) is a main ingredient in traditional hand soaps. Such is the case with caustic soda, or NaOH. This strong, odorless, water-soluble, inorganic compound has industrial uses from textiles to foods and beverages. Read below to find how industrial chemical supplier Bell Chem’s pure caustic soda can benefit your industry.

Alumina
During the Bayer process of production, caustic soda catalyzes the refining of bauxite to the product alumina, which eventually becomes aluminum. Also, strong bases will ultimately destroy aluminum, so during any etching, caustic soda erodes specific areas. Likewise, caustic soda transforms a polished aluminum surface to a satin-smooth finish.  

Biodiesel
Anhydrous caustic soda catalyzes the transesterification of methanol and triglycerides. 

Cement
The plasticity of cement mix brought about by caustic soda homogenizes the ingredients and decreases the amount of water necessary to spread the product. 

Chemical Intermediary
As a strong base, varying strengths of caustic soda easily regulate many chemicals and their reactions. 

Cleaning
When caustic soda is added to water and heated, it is a powerful cleaner for process equipment and storage tanks. Glass and stainless steel soaked in caustic soda clean much more rapidly. Many oven cleaners contain caustic soda as an ingredient.

Detergents and Soaps
Cold process soap-making (saponification) was a traditional use of caustic soda. The product, lye soap, is still created today in small markets. Its ability to destroy proteins, fats, oils, and grease give caustic soda a leading role in removing stains from hands as well as industrial textiles.

Foods and Beverages
Fruits and vegetables are cleaned and chemically peeled with caustic soda. Other uses include the processing of cocoa and its products, scalding poultry, increasing ice cream viscosity, and soft drink processing. Caustic soda softens olives and, in contrast, is used in the glaze of pretzels and hard rolls to make them crisp and shiny. 

Paper and Pulp
An astonishing 25% of all caustic soda manufactured around the world is utilized in the paper industry. Caustic soda alters plant tissues, such as the separation of lignin from cellulose in the kraft process of paper manufacture. As pulp is purified, the second role of caustic soda is noted: it bleaches the resulting brown pulp into the white slurry that we recognize as paper.

Petroleum Refineries
Caustic soda increases alkalinity and viscosity in bentonite mud systems as it neutralizes acidic gases that rise from the earth with drilling.

Water Treatment
Increasing the pH in water supplies protects plumbing from corrosion and reduces the amount of dissolved toxic metals. Caustic soda also takes on this role of pH adjuster in water treatment systems.  

Bell Chem is your industrial chemical supplier based in Longwood, FL (just north of Orlando) with hundreds of products, such as caustic soda, stocked in its 50,000+ square-foot warehouse. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.

Bell Chem: Your Simple Source

Founded in 1992, Bell Chem is proud to be your simple source for all of your chemical needs. Offering a diverse line of food, pharmaceutical, and personal care raw materials, we offer personalized service and are positioned to be your supplier on a local, national, and international level.

Quality
When a company offers ingredients that interact with humans — whether those products are in the form of detergents to clean granaries or processing equipment or ingredients for facial cream — they have to be extremely safe. Bell Chem inspects all products from the manufacturer as they enter stock to maintain integrity, as well as offering quality documentation for all products whether they are food grade, reagent grade, or designated for nutritional, personal care, or pharmaceutical use. 

Quality products extend beyond those that directly interact with humans, though. Bell Chem’s extensive line of sanitation, technical grade chemicals, and water treatment chemicals are pure, hardworking chemicals that fit a vast array of needs and industries. 

How can all these varied ingredients and chemicals be safely transported, handled, and packaged? The answer is in the form of quality control. Every chemical and ingredient passes quality inspections and document control that ensure your product is the same from one shipment to the next. 

Bell Chem is registered with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its food ingredient storage; the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for its pharmaceutical ingredients, which must also meet United States Pharmacopeia standards; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ensure its chemicals are properly stored as well as distributed and disposed of properly; and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to verify workers have adequate personal protective equipment, chemicals are handled properly, and the workplace is safe.

Bell Chem is based in Longwood, FL (just north of Orlando) with hundreds of products stocked in their 50,000+ square-foot warehouse. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.

Utilizing Borax in Water Treatment

Borax is most readily recognizable as a household detergent, but this chemical distributed by Bell Chem, a water treatment chemical supplier, is also a great component in water treatment. Borax, with the chemical formula of Na2B4O7 . 10H2O, may also be called sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, disodium tetraborate, or sodium tetraborate decahydrate. Borax and boric acid are related but different boron compounds. Borax is a natural mineral mined from underground deposits or collected from evaporation deposits aboveground. Once this mineral is processed, the purified chemical is boric acid. In other words, borax is a mineral salt of boric acid. 

• Heat-exchange devices in wastewater treatment plants are notorious for metal corrosion, which is an extremely common problem in the presence of oxygen. When borax is added in the presence of oxygen, a chemical reaction stimulates the formation of ferric oxide film. This important film forms a protective, passive layer along the interior of pipes, which repels oxygen molecules from corroding the pipes’ metals.

• Borax acts as a buffer to keep acidic chemicals from destroying metals and other important surfaces within wastewater treatment plants. When borax works with other inhibitors, their combined abilities outweigh how well they work individually. Working in conjunction, two or more chemicals and borax greatly decrease the amount of damage incurred by low-pH products.

• Heat transfer decreases when metals corrode, so borax is able to maintain pipe environments, which gives pipes a longer, more useful service life.

• Borates act similarly to water softeners, removing most of the insoluble minerals calcium and magnesium from water samples. Customers receiving “soft” water appreciate how their dishes and clothes appear cleaner, and their skin and hair feel softer and better maintained. Household appliances that utilize water, much like the wastewater treatment plants, last longer when their supply consists of soft water rather than water containing dissolved minerals.

• Borax is often used as a surfactant (a cleanser) and effectively controls slime.

Bell Chem is a water treatment chemical supplier with hundreds of products, including a fine array of water treatment chemicals, stocked in their 50,000+ square-foot warehouse. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.

Tricalcium Phosphate in the Food Industry

Tricalcium phosphate is a virtually insoluble calcium salt of phosphoric acid. These properties make it ideal for many uses within the food industry, and because tricalcium phosphate is sourced from a mineral, it is considered vegan-friendly and allowed for use in organic products in the U.S. Bell Chem, a food and reagent product supplier, has compiled a short list of tricalcium phosphate’s most widely known uses.  

Anti-Caking
Tricalcium phosphate’s insolubility plays a vital role when it is an ingredient in dry cake and biscuit mixes, dry soups, powdered drink mixes, and any other food or drink mixture where flowability is necessary. Physically, tricalcium phosphate is a chalky, fine, white powder that can absorb 10% of its overall mass in moisture. Because moisture causes mixes to clump, this water absorption feature keeps mixes flowing freely.

Buffering Agent
Many fermented or canned items, such as jellies, wines, and condiments, have a naturally low pH. Tricalcium phosphate acts as a pH regulator, or buffer, to bring the pH to a more basic level. Acids have a strong flavor; the addition of tricalcium phosphate decreases that flavor, giving foods a more enjoyable taste.Clouding AgentReduced-fat foods often have a distinct mouthfeel that most people do not enjoy. As a clouding agent, tricalcium phosphate adds opacity while it smooths out lumps with its anti-caking properties. The result is a much more robust gravy or soy milk, for instance with a more robust viscosity we recognize as fatty.

Supplement
Calcium is an important mineral that strengthens bones. It bonds readily with other minerals, such as phosphates, to stabilize the molecule and deliver both minerals to the body. Phosphorus plays an active role in cell signaling and energy production throughout the body as well as in nucleic acids, the building blocks of DNA. Added to juice, cereal, or milk, tricalcium phosphate is likely to be the ingredient in these and other “high in calcium” products. Calcium is often paired with Vitamin D (such as in milk and other dairy products) since Vitamin D enhances the absorption of calcium.

 Bell Chem is a food and reagent product supplier with hundreds of products, such as tricalcium phosphate, stocked in their 50,000+ square-foot warehouse. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.

Boric Acid

Boric acid is recognized by myriad names, such as hydrogen borate, boracic acid, acidum boricum, and orthoboric boric acid. Its functions are even more numerous than its aliases. Boric acid appears as a hydrophilic, white, odorless, and basically flavorless powder or colorless crystals. Combining the elements of hydrogen, oxygen, and boron, boric acid is naturally occurring in almost every fruit variety. Several significant examples of water treatment product and chemical supplier Bell Chem’s pure boric acid’s uses are listed below. 

Antiseptic

Boric acid has been used for centuries as an antiseptic for minor burns and cuts; it also serves as an acne treatment because of this property. Boric acid is a fungicide and has been frequently administered for athlete’s foot or other fungal infections. 

Fiberglass

Boric acid’s main industrial role is in the production of fiberglass. It decreases the melting point of fiberglass as it strengthens the fibers. Textile fiberglass, such as that used in skis and circuit boards, also rely on boric acid. Along the same lines, boric acid also strengthens glass used in cooking, laboratories, fluorescent tubes, fiber optics, and LCD monitors and screens; this product is known as borosilicate glass.  

Flame Retardant

Adding boric acid to insulation, mattresses, furniture, gypsum board, plastics, and textiles either during the manufacturing process or as a coating gives these products more resistance to extreme temperatures by reducing the release of combustible gases. 

Insecticides

Many products controlling ant, cockroach, flea, and termite infestation contain boric acid for its insecticidal properties. Boric acid disrupts the electrolytic metabolic functions of insects and abrades their exoskeletons by acting as a desiccant. Because it is sticky, boric acid adheres to one insect’s exoskeleton and is easily transmitted to all other insects it contacts.  

Lubricant

Ceramics and metals that demand direct contact with other products with minimal friction rely on boric acid to help these surfaces glide past each other more easily. 

Pool Care

Swimming pools have a narrow pH range in order to maintain clear, odor-free water. Boric acid acts as a pH buffer to keep water homeostatically constant and often replaces chlorine as a less caustic chemical. 

Bell Chem is a water treatment product and chemical supplier based in Longwood, FL (just north of Orlando) with hundreds of products stocked in their 50,000+ square-foot warehouse, including boric acid. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message. 

Liquid Aluminum Sulfate

When water pours from a faucet, customers anticipate a clear, odorless, colorless liquid with no noticeable taste. Bell Chem, a water treatment product and chemical supplier, is recommended to bring water closer to what is regarded as potable water. 

• Liquid aluminum sulfate removes phosphorus, total organic carbon, biochemical oxygen demand, and suspended solids. It also buffers water by negating its charge and bringing it closer to a neutral pH of 7. As it flocculates small, floating particles of phosphorus, the heavier precipitate filters to the base of the container to be filtered out, a process known as sedimentation. The remaining water is less turbid and significantly clearer.  

In a similar manner, liquid aluminum sulfate benefits freshwater lakes and ponds as it flocculates phosphates and other nutrients necessary for the growth of algae. When algae no longer have a source of food, the rate of algal blooms is greatly reduced. 

• The acidic component of chicken litter falls significantly with the addition of liquid aluminum sulfate in poultry houses. The resulting odor is much less pungent. 

• In paper mills, liquid aluminum sulfate stabilizes the pH of the water bath, controls the pitch, removes impurities, and catalyzes rosin sizing. 

• In dye production, liquid aluminum sulfate acts as a mordant as it fixes dyes to both hard and soft surfaces. 

• Other interesting uses of liquid aluminum sulfate include foam in fire extinguishers, baking soda, the production of soap and deodorants, in fertilizer as a soil additive, and in the manufacture of major league baseball covers, giving the ball a tough, durable hide. 

Bell Chem is a water treatment product and chemical supplier based in Longwood, FL (just north of Orlando) with hundreds of products stocked in their 50,000+ square-foot warehouse. You can expect the highest quality products, expedited shipping options for maximum efficiency, and unrivaled personalized customer service. Let our knowledgeable and friendly customer service representatives and accounting staff personalize all your needs by either calling 407-339-BELL (2355) or by sending us an online message.