I still can't believe that Epsom Salt is mostly water

This video has been sponsored by Audible. I have been fascinated by bath

salt

s for a long time. Although it may surprise you, I am not referring to the medication commonly known as bath

salt

s, but I am referring only to the salt that you can get at the pharmacy to prepare a relaxing bath. At least here in Montreal, the most common is Epsom salt, and this is specifically the one I'm interested in. Stores sell it in huge bags or containers, and it's usually just a bunch of white crystals. However, what has always surprised me is that despite being completely dry, a large portion of it is actually

water

.

In fact, it's not even a huge portion, and it's technically

mostly

water

, at about 53% by weight. All of this water, however, not only absorbs into the Epsom salt like a sponge or something, but is actually chemically part of it. That's why the proper chemical name for Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate heptahydrate, where hydrate refers to water. The central compound is magnesium sulfate, but it has seven water molecules chemically bonded to it. In this way, water is no longer liquid and is part of the solid crystalline structure. However, what I have always found really interesting is that this water is only loosely bound.

With just a little heating, the joints should break and the water should fall out. Also, as I mentioned before, 53% is supposed to be water. At least, in theory, more than 2 liters of pure water come out of this 4 kilo container. That's almost enough to fill about half. To me, this all made sense on paper and the science behind it seemed relatively simple. However, I

still

had a hard time believing there could really be that much water, so I decided I had to try it myself and see if I could get something close to 2 liters. To make this happen, the plan I came up with was relatively simple.

I first had to heat the Epsom salt to release the water and then I had to di

still

the water to separate it from the salt. To start all of this, I took out the largest flask I had and filled it with as much Epsom salt as I could. However, at most I'd probably only fit about a pound and a half, and I figured to make it all, I'd have to make a few separate batches. When it looked pretty full, I took it off the stand and dropped it onto a large heating blanket. After that, I added a stopper, a short path capacitor, and another stopper.

I also had to add a thermometer, as well as the tube that would be feeding the condenser with cold water. The last thing I still needed was something to catch the water, and I simply chose a 1 liter beaker. Now, in theory, I was ready to go. I turned on the heating. At first, it didn't seem like much was happening, and that's because it really wasn't. The water was supposed to start coming out around 150°C, and it would take a while for everything to warm up. After about 10 minutes, I noticed that the salt had sunk a little, which told me something was up.

However, what was much more exciting was the small amount of water that had condensed on the top of the flask. It wasn't even close to 2 liters, but it was definitely a good sign. After another 10 minutes, it sank even further and there was much more water in the flask. That's how I thought it was going to be the whole time, and I thought the salt would continue to shrink and slowly release water. However, just a few minutes later, a small hole opened in the corner and I saw some boiling water. Apparently there was a lot more water than I thought.

There was actually a huge pool hidden underneath. After this, it only took about 5 minutes for it to almost completely liquefy. At this point, I don't know exactly what form the magnesium sulfate was in, but I think it had given off most of its water. Now instead of it being the heptahydrate with 7 waters, it was probably the di or monohydrate with only 2 or 1. After seeing this, I got really excited and really started to

believe

that getting 2 liters was actually going to be possible. At almost the same time, water vapor began to slowly rise up the column and finally reached the cold condenser.

This converted all the vapor back to liquid and a small amount accumulated. When there was finally enough, it was able to come out of the condenser and I got my first drop of beautiful salt bath water. I was also coming at a surprisingly decent pace and within 10 minutes I had enough. Now going back to the flask, there seemed to be even more water and it was now completely boiling. It also looked like it was only half full, which gave me an idea. My original plan was to keep heating it until there was absolutely no water left and then process the rest of the salt in a few separate batches.

However, I started to think that maybe it would be possible to continue completing what I had here and do it all in one go. I removed the stopper, added a funnel and started pouring in some fresh bath salt. I filled it with what I felt was a decent amount and sealed it again. Then I waited for everything to heat up and for the water to fall. Finally, everything was completely liquefied and, about 10 minutes later, it came back to a boil. From this little test, it definitely seemed like adding more was going to be a viable method.

However, I wanted to maximize the space before the next addition and decided to wait until the water was almost gone. I waited patiently and in the end it took me about five hours. I also kept collecting water and little by little it added up to a decent amount. When it finally started to decrease, it was already at about 900 milliliters. Looking back at the salt, it still looked a little wet, but I didn't see any actual liquid water. Then I pulled the plug out again and this time I really tried to charge it. However, I overestimated things and added too much.

I tried inserting it and it didn't work at all, and for a second I was worried I had made a mistake. But then I realized that all I had to do was wait for the material in the flask to liquefy and leave more room. After that, I was able to fit everything in easily and there was still plenty of room left, so I decided to keep adding more. I strained as much as I could and when it was completely full again, I waited about 15 minutes. Even after this, it was only half full and definitely seemed like it was possible to add everything.

It took me a little effort and about five minutes to mix things together, but I was finally able to completely empty the container. Then I waited for everything to melt again, put everything in the funnel and dropped the stopper. A few minutes later, the water started coming out again. I let this glass fill until it was about a liter and then swapped it for a new one. At this point I had 1 liter of the theoretical 2 and assumed it would take about the same time to get the other liter. As before, the amount of water in the flask slowly decreased and I collected more and more in the beaker.

It seemed to be going the same as before, and after about five hours, it seemed like all the water in the flask was gone. This time, however, there was only about 600 milliliters in the glass, and it wasn't even close to the liter I was expecting. I think this is because the last bit of water is much more stubborn. I imagine that most of what was here now was monohydrate, and this had a much stronger bond with water. To break it, it would take a much higher temperature and, unfortunately, probably much longer. At this point, it was about 250°C, and I tried to get it up to about 350.

Over the next two hours, I was able to squeeze out another 100 milliliters, but it was incredibly slow. It was also getting very late and now I was stuck with a problem. I could leave it overnight and let it finish, but I was worried about leaving something so hot completely unattended. On the other hand, I was very afraid that if I turned it off now the flask would break. This is because it generally never ends well when you have to cool a flask that has a huge chunk in it. When I started this, I knew the flask would die and I was willing to sacrifice it.

However, I just wanted it to die when I was done with it, and there was still a lot of water I had to draw out. In the end, I decided to avoid the fire risk and risk letting it cool down. I removed the glass and turned off the heating blanket. At first everything seemed fine, but as I was getting ready to leave, I heard a bang in the other room. I ran and checked it, hoping it was something else. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, and there was a large crack in the back. I wanted to take it all apart and take a closer look, but it was still too hot to touch and I left it overnight to cool.

The next day I took out all the pieces and punctured the magnesium sulfate. I expected it to be hard and probably hard to break, but I hoped it wouldn't be too bad. However, what he had here looked like a cement block. Now at this point I basically had two options. I could go ahead and scoop out the rest of the water, or I could just give up. Honestly, I just wanted to quit, but I decided to at least try. To do this, I had to move all of this magnesium sulfate to a new, intact flask. The first step was to get him out of this.

This left me with a solid brick of magnesium sulfate, which I now had to grind into powder. To do this, I thought I'd start by just dropping it and letting it break on its own. If anything, it sounded like my table was the only thing that broke. Apparently it was even stronger than he thought, and to destroy it he was going to have to use a little more force. I expected one blow to break it easily, and the fact that it took three scared me. This was because it meant that this whole part was going to be an absolute nightmare.

Even the sharp end of the hammer didn't work, and it still took too many blows to break it. It really felt like I was trying to break a rock and I had no idea how I was going to turn all of this into dust. Doing it manually this way seemed like it was going to be too much work and I decided to try automating it. I went online and found a random comment saying that an electric food grinder worked well with chalk. Of course, I didn't actually have chalk, but I felt like it was close enough that it could work.

In my mind, I expected it to just crumble like a piece of cheese. At first, it seemed like it was working, but it quickly stopped working. The magnesium sulfate was too harsh and had already dulled the blade. Just for fun, I changed the blade for a new one, and this one failed even worse. It hit an edge, there was too much force on it and part of it broke off. This was unfortunate, but to be fair, I have no idea how I thought it would actually work. It was too ambitious to try to basically grind a rock using something meant for carrots and cheese.

I was going to have to use something a little sturdier and a blender was the only thing I could think of. However, I was too afraid to use my nice, expensive one and bought this one on sale for $20. Unlike before, it actually seemed to work and was producing some dust. However, it was not very efficient and was mainly limited to bouncing the pieces. Then I tried it with just one piece and still had the same problem. He didn't have the power to break it, and was slowly cutting off small pieces. This was really inefficient, to say the least, and would take forever to process everything like this, assuming the blender survived.

Unfortunately, power tools weren't working for me and it looked like I was going to have to do things manually. I definitely wasn't going to try using a hammer again, but instead used this pipe with a lid. I dropped one of the pieces that didn't mix and then broke it with a smaller pipe. This is a commonly used method for crushing rocks and seemed to work quite well. There were still some pieces left, but it was

mostly

destroyed. In this dry, powdered form, magnesium sulfate really likes to draw moisture out of the air, so it was important to transfer it all to a sealed container.

After that, I continued to destroy the rest. At first it seemed like everything was going to be fine, but honestly it was a nightmare. I spent the next five hours breaking two pipes. It was also a bit messy and it was impossible not to lose some of the dust. When I was finally done, there were still some pieces that I felt were too big, so I put everything in the blender, which actually worked for the smaller pieces. This left me with a decent, very dry powder, and it didn't really seem like it had any water in it.

Again, in theory, I knew there had to be, but I had the same feeling of doubt I had with the source material. But either way, now I had to do exactly the same thing I did before. The only difference was that this time I was going to turn up the heat much higher and bring it to around 400°C. When it got to around 350, I started to see some water vapor condensing on the sides. Shortly after that, a few drops of water fell. The pace was much slower than before, but it still seemed decent. It seemed like the last bit of water was breaking and I was really hoping I could get everything I was missing.

Of course, this decent rate didn't last long and really started to decline. To squeeze out the last bit, I was going to have to insulate it with aluminum foil andwait for it to reach 400°C. In fact, it started to appear again at a decent rate, but there was a slight cloudiness to it, which slowly got worse and worse. It also had a very strong sulfur smell and made the room smell like I had just set off some fireworks. At first, I thought it might be because the magnesium sulfate broke down under high heat. However, I don't think that's the reason, because magnesium sulfate only starts to break down around 1000°C.

I think it was simply due to some sulfur contamination and perhaps other impurities that were in the bath salt. When it got to about 100 milliliters, it became incredibly slow. I was really hoping to get the full amount I was missing, which was about 394 milliliters, but at this rate, it would take days. I ended up quitting when I got to about 8 ounces, which took me almost 10 hours. After this, I slowly lowered the temperature of the heating blanket and kept the flask covered. I hoped this would reduce the impact on the flask and prevent it from cracking. I came back to it a few hours later and had indeed survived.

Then I took everything apart and poured out the now super dry magnesium sulfate. It wasn't completely free of water yet, but it was very close. Now, getting back on the water after the last race, I was able to get quite a bit done. However, it was also much nastier than I expected, so I decided to try cleaning it up. I initially planned to pour it through a Brita filter, but I didn't think it was powerful enough. Instead, I made my own industrial-strength model. To do this, I filled a funnel with some activated charcoal that I bought at the pet store.

Then I poured all my thick water through it and it looked just as bad on the other side. This didn't surprise me though, and the charcoal was mainly to eliminate the smell. However, one pass didn't work, so I swapped it for a clean glass and poured it all in again. Then I did this three more times, it removed most of the smell and cleared up a bit. After that, I tested the pH and it was quite acidic, which was not good. I set up another filter using something called mixed ion exchange resin. It can also sometimes be found in pet stores as it can be used to clean aquarium water.

Along with carbon, this is the other main part of a typical Brita filter and removes dissolved ions. From the first pass it already seemed much less cloudy. I also repeated it three times and each time it looked much better. Now when I tested the pH, it seemed like it was slightly above 6, which was very close to neutral. The water now had almost no smell and was definitely much better than before. In the end, this was all the water I could get out. Although I

believe

in science and expected it to work, the amount was somewhat surprising.

In total, I was able to get a little over 1,900 milliliters, which wasn't the theoretical 2,067, but it was very close. I guess the missing 151 milliliters were still trapped in the salt. Now, to get a real idea of ​​how much water it was, I had to pour it all back into the original container. As I thought from the beginning, it was enough water to fill almost half of the container, which is crazy. But anyway, now I had plenty of salt water for the bath and I just had to know what it tasted like. Well, unfortunately it's time to try it and see how horrible it probably is.

The first thing I'll do is smell it. It doesn't smell very good. It smells like a weak version of the nasty sulfur I just cleaned. It's not horrible. It just smells a little like old, stale water. I guess I'll try it now. It just tastes like bad tap water. But I'm not sure why. The first test was much better than the second. The second one was a bit bitter. Makes me think I definitely didn't get everything out of that nasty third race. It was still a little tart and I think that's what I'm tasting. But either way, I don't think it was very good anyway.

The taste is horrible. But what I do find interesting is that I have no idea where this water actually came from. I mean, I know I got it from Epsom salt, but where Epsom salt picked up that water is a mystery. I originally assumed it was probably due to the manufacturing process used to make Epsom salt, but what seems more likely is that Epsom salt is simply extracted from a natural source, and was probably simply collected from its environment. I suppose depending on the age of the Epsom salt, it could be very old water. Maybe this is ancient water.

But either way, I have plenty of that. I have decided to give away a few bottles, a few little bottles of my own salty bath water. If you want it, there is a link in the description where you can sign up for a chance to get it. I mean, I don't know why you would want it, but... In the end, this project took a lot longer than I thought and was a mess, but I think it was worth it. One thing I did want to mention though is that this video was not intended to show that Epsom salt is a scam or anything like that.

I mean, it could be, but as far as I know, there are actually some practical reasons to sell it as a heptahydrate. The first is that the dehydrated form reacts strongly with water and can generate enough heat to cause serious burns. It also doesn't dissolve very well and tends to clump together and form bricks, like the one I had to deal with. But anyway, now I just want to thank the sponsor of this video, Audible, for supporting this very important scientific endeavor. Audible is one of the largest providers of spoken content and has a huge library of audiobooks and podcasts.

They also offer lots of other things, like Audible originals and even guided meditation. Over the years, I've told myself I'd read more books, but somehow I never feel like I have the time. However, with Audible I can listen to them while editing or working on a project, and I've actually been able to finish several books. A couple of years ago, I recommended Ignition! By John Clark, and it's still one of my favorites. Right now, though, I'm halfway through Shoe Dog, which was written by the founder of Nike, and is about how he founded the company. Honestly, his entire journey has amazed me.

However, with all that said, if you're interested in accessing audiobooks or podcasts, Audible is definitely the best place to check out. Right now, they're offering a free trial, which gives you a free audiobook of your choice, access to Audible Originals, and access to daily news briefings like The New York Times. You can start by visiting Audible.com/nilered or texting NILRED to 500500. But with all that said… I don't know. I've finished. That's all. As always, thank you very much to all my followers on Patreon. Everyone who supports me can watch all my new videos at least 24 hours before I post them on YouTube.

You will also have access to all the older videos that I had to delete. If you support me with $5 or more, you'll get your name at the end like you see here.