What is Borax? Is it toxic?
Question:I foung some Eco-friendly cleaner reciepies on the internet and they say you add Borax to the recipe but I just have this feeling that it is toxic?? Is this true? lol I have a box of it downstairs but I'm to lazy to get up and look at it.. :(
Answers:
Borax from Persian burah.[1][2] also called sodium borate, or sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate, is an important boron compound, a mineral, and a salt of boric acid. It is usually a white powder consisting of soft colorless crystals that dissolve easily in water.
Borax has a wide variety of uses. It is a component of many detergents, cosmetics, and enamel glazes. It is also used to make buffer solutions in biochemistry, as a fire retardant, as an anti-fungal compound for fibreglass, as an insecticide, as a flux in metallurgy, and as a precursor for other boron compounds.
The term borax is used for a number of closely related minerals or chemical compounds that differ in their crystal water content, but usually refers to the decahydrate. Commercially sold borax is usually partially dehydrated
Buffer
Sodium borate is used in biochemical and chemical laboratories to make buffer solutions, e.g. for gel electrophoresis of DNA. It has a lower conductivity, produces sharper bands, and can be run at higher speeds than can gels made from TBE buffer or TAE buffer (5 - 35 V/cm as compared to 5 - 10 V/cm). At a given voltage, the heat generation and thus the gel temperature is much lower than with TBE or TAE buffers, therefore the voltage can be increased to speed up electrophoresis so that a gel run takes only a fraction of the usual time. Downstream applications, such as isolation of DNA from a gel slice or southern blot analysis, work as expected with sodium borate gels. Borate buffers (usually at pH 8) are also used as preferential equilibration solution in DMP-based crosslinking reactions.
Lithium borate is similar to sodium borate and has all of its advantages, but permits use of even higher voltages due to the lower conductivity of lithium ions as compared to sodium ions.[3] However, lithium borate is much more expensive.
[edit] Flux
A mixture of borax and ammonium chloride is used as a flux when welding iron and steel. It lowers the melting point of the unwanted iron oxide (scale), allowing it to run off. Borax is also used mixed with water as a flux when soldering jewelry metals such as gold or silver. It allows the molten solder to flow evenly over the joint in question. Borax is also a good flux for 'pre-tinning' tungsten with zinc - making the tungsten soft-solderable.[4]
[edit] Food additive
Borax is used as a food additive in some countries with the E number E285, but is banned in the United States. Its use is similar to salt, and it appears in French and Iranian caviar.
[edit] Other uses
component of detergents
component of cosmetics
ingredient in enamel glazes
component of glass, pottery, and ceramics
fire retardant
anti-fungal compound for fibreglass and cellulose insulation
insecticide to kill ants and fleas
precursor for sodium perborate monohydrate that is used in detergents, as well as for boric acid and other borates
treatment for thrush in horse's hoofs
used to make indelible ink for dip pens by dissolving shellac into heated borax
Toxicity
Boric acid, sodium borate, and sodium perborate are estimated to have a fatal dose from 0.1 to 0.5g/kg.[5] These substances are toxic to all cells, and have a slow excretion rate through the kidneys. Kidney toxicity is the greatest, with liver fatty degeneration, cerebral edema, and gastroenteritis. Boric acid solutions used as an eye wash or on abraded skin are known to be especially toxic to infants, especially after repeated use due to its slow elimination rate.[
i think it's for cleaning...i've only seen it once in a science experiment in class over a year ago, and i'm not sure if it's toxic, but by the look of it, i wouldn't suggest trying to swallow it.
No, it's not toxic. Many people with pets sprinkle it around the house as a natural way to to kill fleas.
I found this for ya.Boric acid and sodium borate (borax) is potentially toxic to people and pets. However serious poisonings in humans have been reported very rarely from a single acute ingestion. Serious toxicity is more likely with repeated exposure to raw or abraded skin or from repeated ingestions.
I know it can be used to get rid of ants so while it may not be toxic in one way - it certainly is in others. See below also.
I don't see how something that can irritate the skin and shouldn't be injested can be eco-friendly!
"How Safe is Borax
Borax has no toxic fumes and is safe for the environment. Borax can irritate skin and should not be ingested."
This was from the website listed below.
Well, the Environmental Protection Agency website lists borax as a safe alternative to toxic cleaners in this article:
http://es.epa.gov/techinfo/facts/safe-fs...
(scroll down to the non-toxic section).
It seems clear that borax is something that you can OD on or otherwise hurt yourself with at high concentrations. But so are most vitamins.
it is to ants and flea. it is eco friendly to use in wash.
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