Table salt is essential to the health of humans and animals. This mineral is comprised primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). Table salt is actually a refined salt containing 95 to 99 percent of sodium chloride.
In its natural form, table salt is crystalline and is known as rock salt or halite. It is found in seawater in large quantities.
Uses Of Table Salt
Apart from its use in countless cuisines around the world, table salt has other utilities still considered to be under dietary uses which include; the old-fashioned preservation, ingredient in manufactured foodstuffs, desiccant, dietary supplement etc.
Non-dietary uses of table salt include its use in water conditioning processes, deicing, agriculture, manufacturing, and other industrial processes.
Table Salt: A Compound Or An Element?
From where I stand, answering this question first requires that the terms “compound” and “element” be defined. In that case;
A compound is a substance composed of many molecules composed of atoms from more than one element held together by chemical bonds.
An element is a substance that cannot be broken down into simpler components by any non-nuclear chemical reaction. Or, an element is a substance that is made entirely from one type of atom.
These definitions tell us that for a substance to be a compound, it has to consist of at least two substances or that a compound is formed by at least two substances. It also tells us that an element is a single substance.
Now recall that it was stated in the first paragraph that table salt comprises primarily of sodium chloride – two substances. This answers the question of if table salt is a compound or an element.
Just for the sake of indulgence, I’ll state the answer clearly; table salt is a compound and not an element.
Classes Of Salt
I’ll say salts are of two classes – the edible and the non-edible classes. The following are types of salts under the edible class;
- Table salt
- Kosher salt
- Sea salt
- Himalayan pink salt
- Celtic sea salt
- Black Hawaiian salt
- Flake salt
- Red Hawaiian salt
- Smoked salt
- Pickling salt
The non-edible salts as identified in Chemistry include;
- Normal salt
- Acid salt
- Basic salt
- Double salt
- Complex salt
Production Of Table Salt
Seawater contains predominantly sodium chloride. This dominance is to a great extent such that the oceans are considered to be inexhaustible of this mineral.
Evaporation of seawater is one of the widely used methods of table salt production. This method is adopted in places where high evaporation rates exist.
In places where this factor is non-existential to a favorable degree, extraction from sedimentary deposits is resorted to. Once the raw salt is gotten, it is subjected to a series of refining processes to remove impurities, thereby making it suitable for consumption.