Experimental determination of the metastable zone width of borax decahydrate by ultrasonic velocity measurement

The metastable zone width of borax decahydrate (disodium tetraborate decahydrate), represented by the maximum undercooling ΔT_max, both in pure and impure aqueous solutions were determined according to polythermal method by using the ultrasonic technique. It is found that the metastable zone width of borax decahydrate in pure solutions determined by ultrasonic method fulfills well the linear relation between logΔT_max and log(-dT/dt). However, the sensitivity of the method using the ultrasonic technique increases with increasing saturation temperature, probably due to the increase of temperature dependence of solubility with increasing saturation temperature. A comparison of the nucleation temperatures from ultrasonic measurements and from visual determination shows that both detection techniques give almost the same results for borax decahydrate. The results obtained from ultrasonic measurements show, that the presence of Ca²⁺ as impurity has only a small effect on the metastable zone width of borax decahydrate as long as the impurity concentrations is in the range of 25-200 ppm. Similar to the effect of Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺ also has a small effect on the metastable zone width of borax up to the impurity concentration of 100 ppm. However, the presence of 200 ppm Mg²⁺ results in a reasonable increase of the metastable zone width.