Talk:Sodium sulfate

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Sodium sulfate is within the scope of WikiProject Chemicals, a daughter project of WikiProject Chemistry, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of chemicals. To participate, help improve this article or visit the project page for details on the project.
Core This is a core article in the WikiProject Chemicals worklist
A This article has been rated as A-Class on the quality scale.
High This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale.

Article Grading: The following comments were left by the quality and importance raters: (edit · history · watch · refresh)

Making it ready for FA-Class
This page has been selected for the release version of Wikipedia and rated A-Class on the assessment scale. It is in the category Natsci.
Good article Sodium sulfate was one of the Natural sciences good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Maintained The following user(s) are actively involved with this article and may be able to help with questions about verification and sources:
Wim van Dorst and Martin Walker
This in no way implies article ownership; all editors are encouraged to contribute.


Contents

[edit] Videos

I must say that the videos are excessively long... Several minutes to demonstrate a point that is made within seconds...Sikkema (talk) 14:38, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

  • You're right. Would you have the means (software?) to make these ones shorter, or (lab?) to make shorter ones? Wim van Dorst (talk) 17:32, 31 March 2008 (UTC).

[edit] Melting point

Is 32.4 C really the temperature at which this salt undergoes a phase transition, or is that the temperature that the hydrated crystal loses it's water molecules (and subsequently, the salt dissolves in the freshly released water)? Pkeck 05:08, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

It is the latter that occurs, it dissolves into its water of hydration. 32.4 C is a kind-of magic temperature for Na2SO4. If you look in the Physical and chemical properties section you can see this in the graph, and also in the final paragraph: "This nonconformity can be explained in terms of hydration, since 32.4 °C corresponds with the temperature at which the crystalline decahydrate (Glauber's salt) changes to give a sulfate liquid phase and an anhydrous solid phase." Walkerma 16:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image

I have some nice images of crystals of this compound that will do it more justice than the little pile of white crystals on a watchglass. I will add the image in with the other two. If you feel that it should be moved to a seperate part of the article or if the original or my image should be completely removed, don't hesistate to say something. Dormroomchemist 07:42, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

-I'm not too surefooted with posting images and the sandbox feature appears to have been repeatedly hacked, so I'm not going to post it tonight. When I viewed the image in its final size, I was unimpressed, so I will grow a large single crystal of the decahydrate (very easy) and post that. Dormroomchemist 07:56, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I posted the original picture. If you can get a nice crystal, that would be great! I've found lighting to be critical for getting nice pictures of crystals, bright sunlight is best. Let me know if you need help uploading the image, and also I recommend you post to Commons] so other Wikipedias can use your picture. Be sure to put GFDL, CC or public domain for the copyright. Thanks a lot! Walkerma 16:28, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Trona?

Under other names, Trona is listed, but trona is the name for the mineral form of (Na3HCO3CO3·2H2O), according to the article on trona. I am removing this error from the page. If I am somehow wrong, please correct me. Dormroomchemist 07:37, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I was the one who put this information in, because I got it from Kirk-Othmer, but in my reading since that time I've seen it used in reference to the carbonate. I seem to recall Kirk-Othmer also mentioned that much of the US supply comes from a town called, you guessed, Trona. I wonder if both minerals occur together? Anyway, better to be safe - thanks for removing it. Walkerma 16:19, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conversion from Glauber's salt article

I plan to expand this article to a full-sized chemistry article soon. Does anyone mind if I rename it as sodium sulfate, with Glauber's salt as a redirect? I will not remove the interesting background on Glauber's salt, don't worry! Walkerma 21:42, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Of course we don't mind: this is the proper thing to do. If I had had the time to start on it, the renaming would be the first action. Support. Wim van Dorst 20:58, 2005 Jun 13 (UTC).

[edit] Go on.

Although sodium sulfate is generally regarded as non-toxic, handle it with care.

Keep going...—Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.72.9.37 (talk • contribs)

Thanks! Not exactly sure what you mean, though. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:12, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Delisted GA

This article has been removed from the GA list due to lack of references. Tarret 18:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Failed "good article" nomination

This article failed good article nomination. This is how the article, as of March 21, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: The lead goes straight into the details without really giving an introduction.
2. Factually accurate?: More references could help. The following statement has perhaps too many references: "Sodium sulfate is chemically very stable, being unreactive toward most oxidising or reducing agents at normal temperatures." This leaves entire sections unreferenced.
3. Broad in coverage?: "History" and "Precautions" need expansion.
4. Neutral point of view?: Good.
5. Article stability? Good.
6. Images?: Good.

When these issues are addressed, the article can be resubmitted for consideration. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to a GA review. Thank you for your work so far.

King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:44, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
  5. It is stable.
  6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
    a (tagged and captioned): b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
  7. Overall:
    a Pass/Fail:

King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:44, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article Review

The article was GA-delisted for failing the in-line references technical requirement. This has been taken care of, and the article was renominated. The renominated failed because of the above mentioned arguments. In my perceptions, the requirements for GA are over-estimated by the GA-renomination auditor. This article in my perception should very reasonably be considered GA-class or even A-Class, albeit not FA-Class yet. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 00:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC).

I think I would agree that this article is good (admittedly I have some bias), but also KOH with his slightly "caustic" (geddit?) comments has given us a thoughtful, objective review. We should really try and find which specific things he disliked (e.g., which sections need improvement in prose). I'm sure that if we try and polish this article, we can make it better; if we do a good job of polishing we can nominate it for FA. I know many of our better articles have specific sections (often on trivia) that have attracted many short anon contributions, and these may need to be polished or chopped down - in this article it's the "other applications".
From what I've seen of the GA reviews, one problem we may face is that chemical papers do have their own style, and some stock phrases. A non-chemist may not like some of these phrases, and think them odd. I'm thinking of the toluene review recently, where the reviewer disliked things like "Around 25 times more reactive" and "Undergoes smooth sulfonation". These are standard chemistry phrases you'll find both in papers and textbooks, but clearly they sound funny to non-chemists. I think we need to try and find out what the reviewer specifically dislikes, and see if we can come up with things that sound OK to both chemists and non-chemists alike. What would they prefer? (Actually I think toluene should be a B, it needs work IMHO). It's a nuisance, I agree, but I suspect that we may end up with an article that is stronger for it.
There is another issue here, namely that GA and FA are widely considered to be getting closer and closer together in terms of standards. It used to be that there was a perceptible difference between the prose standards allowed for GA compared to FA, but I think that has largely disappeared. I think it became difficult to hold the line and pass GAs when imperfections were apparent to the experienced reviewer. The main difference now, I think, is that there is only one reviewer spotting things instead of several! But pass/fail doesn't really matter too much overall - we should always be striving to make the articles better. Walkerma 03:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Indeed you bring forward the important points, as well as the good positive attitude towards continuous improvement with both have my full support. That GA and FA are getting closer is a pity, in my humble opinion, as I'm don't feel like making an effort on behalf of GA, and shall be going for the more substantial and better balanced discussion of FA instead. And I agree on the other re-nominations failing (hence B-Class), so there I intentionally did not ask for a review. PS. Have a nice trip. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 09:45, 24 March 2007 (UTC).
The review resulted in no change in status, review archived here: Wikipedia:Good article review/Archive 16. Homestarmy 00:04, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Swimming Pools

"Sodium sulfate can be used in swimming pools, hot tubs and spa bathing waters to reduce the alkalinity of the waters."

Is there a citation for this? I feel the author has confused sodium sulfate with sodium bisulfate. This also contradicts an earlier portion of the article which says (correctly) that sodium sulfate is a neutral salt. Finally I have looked at the msds of many "pH down" products for swimming pools. Most of which are >90% sodium bisulfate with a small percentage of sodium sulfate. This small percentage of sodium sulfate I assume comes from the manufacturing process of Sodium bisulfate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.177.145.241 (talk • contribs)

  • You're right. I deleted the faulty paragraph. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:06, 29 June 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Producer links

The links to producers are simply WP:SPAM. The links contain little or no information and Wikipedia is not for their promotional purposes. Removing again. Vsmith 12:59, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

  • Thanks for pointing out your view of this. I'm glad this time you gave appropriate attention to which links you have deleted, and have taken the opportunity to explain your emphatic behaviour. To accommodate your opinion, I have re-introduced only two producer links (there is no commerce behind them, so they are clearly not wp:spam, however, to make this even more clear, I have make the URLs to deeplink into the producer website, directly to the specific sodium sulfate information. I hope you can also see my point of view, and not delete any more. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:12, 11 July 2007 (UTC).
I do understand, but even those two deep links have very little information and linking to just a couple or a few commercial suppliers constitutes promotion or favoritism - simple spam. Now, I see that you are a signatory of Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals and should be aware of Template:Chembox new which allows direct connection to external sources through the CAS number search function. Given this any commercial links in the external links section should be removed. So the sodium sulfate article should be edited to use the new chembox and remove any promotional external links. Vsmith 00:42, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
So, when I provide balanced links for all major sodium sulfate producers, you call it WP:SPAM because it is just an overview of links, and when I therefore reduce it to just those list which have more specific information, you call it WPSPAM because it is favoritism. I do get the impression here that you can't have it both ways, you know. And yes, perhaps I'll use the cas-search, although I'm not intending to re-create the chembox with the new template as that one has other problems as well. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:39, 12 July 2007 (UTC).
I stand by Wim here. Too often on Wikipedia we are so worried that we will be promoting a company that we lose sight of our mission, to provide complete encyclopedic information on the topic. How can you have a complete article (which we want to make int an FAC - yes I plan to add more soon, Wim) on a major industrial product and avoid mentioning the main producers of that product? If you look at an article like automaker, it is (quite appropriately) full of company names like Ford, Toyota, etc. Why should one industrial product (the car) get different treatment from another (sodium sulfate)? I agree that we shouldn't promote one manufacturer over another. But we also shouldn't turn all commercial information into a taboo and make our encyclopedia into the equivalent of the birds and the bees). Walkerma 03:11, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Hmm... your example automakers article sorta falls flat. There are no external links to Ford, Toyota, etc., only internal links to articles about the individual companies. Likewise, with chemicals, if individual producers are notable - then articles should be written about them and linked to from the chemical article. Wikipedia is not a link farm - and linking to information poor promotional websites is specifically discouraged. The CAS# capabilities of the new chembox neatly provides access to producer information without violating Wikipedia rules on promotional external links. Why should chemical articles be exempt from those rules? Perhaps this discussion should be moved to the wikiproject talk page for more input. Vsmith 03:35, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
As I understand it, the new chembox is designed for all chemical compounds, to avoid us having 5000 pages all linking to Aldrich, Fisher, etc., and I fully support that excellent approach to generic commercial information. This is a different situation - we are talking about companies producing huge tonnages of this commodity chemical, not merely distributing a laboratory reagent. In my view, the key thing is to include the names producers (taken from impartial sources, which these are). If links are so much of a problem, people can always use Google, but I think the article would be stronger with links, until such time as (as with the major automakers) there are separate articles on the companies themselves (which include links to the companies' websites). We also need to make sure we are balanced in our linking; to me, that is more important than deeplinking in this particular case. Good idea to raise this at WP:Chem, we need to agree on a policy for all major commodity chemicals. Walkerma 04:09, 13 July 2007 (UTC)