Baked baking soda - how thick of a layer?

[rdmpe]

I need to bake some baking soda! But my oven/range died a couple of days ago (RIP). All I have right now is a toaster oven, we are buying a new range tomorrow. But I can't wait that long!

So if I bake it at 300F for an hour, how thick of a layer can I make?

Thanks!

 

[rdmpe]

Well, I spread it about 1/8" or maybe 3/16" thick... Hopefully it will not impact the release of co2... Now Baking...

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You can probably go thicker. Maybe an inch. If it is very thick, it will take longer to heat up, so bake it longer.

 

[rdmpe]

Thanks - next time I'll be able to do a little more at a time. Of course, I may have a real oven by then.

This stuff really brings the ph up. I put 1 teaspoon in a gallon of rodi, and after adding it, my 180g ph went up 0.1 just from that little teaspoon! This was about midnight when the ph is normally stable at 8.0.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

:thumbsup:

Even if not "fully" baked, it will still help raise pH.

Happy reefing.

 

[j0tca]

Randy,

Do you cover baked baking soda in an article? How does it work?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Baking it drives CO2 and water from it:

A Homemade Two-Part Calcium and Alkalinity Additive System
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/april2004/chem.htm

from it:

"All you are doing is changing the amount of carbon dioxide in the baking soda:

2 NaHCO3 ---> Na2CO3 + H2O + CO2

More or less baking will only alter the pH rise on addition to the aquarium. However, substantial under baking may make it impossible to attain full dissolution of the solid material in the recipe as sodium bicarbonate is less soluble than sodium carbonate (and is why Recipe#2 is more dilute)."