Group 2: Alkaline earth metals
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What are the common uses for magnesium sulphate, magnesium chloride, and magnesium ethanoate?
Jenkin replies ...
Magnesium chloride, obtained from sea water, is used as a source of magnesium metal. This has many uses, especially as a light-weight constructional metal. If you have a metal pencil sharpener it is probably made of magnesium, but there are many other applications, such as in aircraft fuselages, bike frames, and luggage. The metal is obtained from the chloride by electrolysis of the molten compound.
Magnesium sulphate doesn’t seem to have many important uses. You can buy it at garden centres for use as a plant nutrient: some plants, such as tomatoes and raspberries, are liable to suffer from magnesium deficiency. Some brands of beer are high in magnesium: apparently Webster’s Yorkshire Bitter may owe some of its unique taste to the high levels of magnesium sulphate in the water used to brew it. Hydrated magnesium sulphate is the main ingredient of the purgative, Epsom Salts.
The common name for magnesium ethanoate is magnesium acetate. If you use this common name as a search term in a Internet search engine such as Google you will find that this salt is used as a deicer for roads instead of common salt. It is less corrosive.
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updated: 21 November 2003
