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bquirky
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The taste of salts
I was day dreaming today and got to wondering what salts other than NaCl tasted like.
do salts with sodium taste more like table salt than chloride salts ? or will lots of things trigger the salt taste buds and all taste alike ?
Im not feeling inclined to go around sticking my finger in jars of random inorganic solutions but i cant seem to get the question out of my head.
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12AX7
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Sodium and chloride salts tend to taste salty. Both together are quite salty. Something else, like sodium sulfate, is maybe half as salty. Simple
explanation is probably that sulfate doesn't interact with the tongue (or much else, since sulfate isn't absorbed into the body, as I recall). Sodium
bicarbonate is salty and tangy (as you might expect from the anion). Supposedly, nitrates have a cooling effect. Metabisulfites have a burning
taste. Potassium is salty, but more bitter than sodium.
Acidic cations, ranging from alkaline earths to aluminum to transition metals, all taste sour and astringent due to their precipitation in neutral
saliva. You can just imagine alum (potassium aluminum sulfate) depositing a sour, chalky layer of aluminum hydroxide all over your tongue... no
surprise that's exactly how unpleasant it feels!
Tim
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Jor
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But lead acetate does not taste sour, while Pb(II) is an acidic cation! It tasts very sweet just like sugar!
And copper sulfate tastes very bitter.
I wonder how Hg(CN)2 tastes like 
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unionised
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" Something else, like sodium sulfate, is maybe half as salty. Simple explanation is probably that sulfate doesn't interact with the tongue "
Sodium sulphate tastes bitter as well as salty.
I read that the only other thing that tastes of salt (apart from NaCl) is LiCl which isn't good news for the "low sodium food" industry.
The mixture of KCl and NaCl that's sold as a salt substitue tastes salty but with a bitter taste too.
I have heard that beryllium salts are sweet too. Oddly both Pb++ and Be++ are rather toxic but sweet; I wonder if it's a coincidence.
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chloric1
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Sodium nitrate is pleasantly cooling with a mild aftertaste,
magnesium sulfate and calcium chloride are quite bitter. In fact I believe all calcium and magnesium salts are bitter. One exception is the
magnesium citrate solution sold at the pharmacy. It is intolerably sour and when I use it as a laxative, I must dilute it twice its volume with
gatorade.
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User
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Caliumchloride tastes very salty, it is used for people with certain diets those with low sodium etc.
What a fine day for chemistry this is.
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chloric1
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Taste is actually a complex thing. I note that calcium chloride is salty but has bitter notes. Sodium chloride is simular without the acrid notes.
Also, worthy of commenting, potassium chloride is sweetish in high dilutions. Many mineral water companies exploit this property to enhance there
water as being more crisp and refreshing.
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ammonium isocyanate
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Beryllium salts are extreemly sweet, so much so that this quality was once used to identify them. Too bad that they're also very toxic.
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12AX7
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I find that lead acetate is perhaps as sweet as sugar, but also sour / bitter and astringent, exactly as I'd expect. Those were white prismatic
crystals, I don't think there was any appreciable impurity in them (whereas other lead acetate I've made ranges from green to reddish, due to copper
and iron impurity).
Tim
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bquirky
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How do you judge if a salt is safe to taste ?
Just try a little and hope for the best ?
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hissingnoise
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IIRC, the Romans developed an unhealthy interest in lead acetate at one time so I'd be wary of tasting it.
NaClO3 tastes less salty than NaCl and there's a pleasant coolness to it.
NH4NO3 is very unpleasantly salty, though what I tasted was very impure.
I've found that all acids I've tasted have pretty much the same sourness. . .
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chloric1
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I would like to try pure ammonium nitrate on the grounds that sodium nitrate is such a pleasing taste.
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How do you judge if a salt is safe to taste ? Just try a little and hope for the best ?
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Some salts are not worth tasting because of their toxicity. Salts of Lead, barium, cadmium, nickel or hexavalent chromium compounds. IIRC barium
chloride can be lethal at 0.8 grams! One small crystal might be enough for diarhea and heart spasms. Lead has the capability to find phosphate in the
body and deposit in your bones accumulating! I don't even want to guess what cadmium does.
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Formatik
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The book Die organischen Geschmacksstoffe by Georg Cohn has about two pages mentioning inorganic compounds and salts, some examples are
HMnO4, KMnO4 which taste sweetly bitter and astringent.
Sweetly (cooling) and alkaline is borax. Sweet to sweetly: sodium hexametaphosphate, zinc bromide, etc.
Sweetly tart (astringent): nickel salts, beryllium salts, samarium salts, potassium osmate, aluminium sulfate, alum, didymium sulfate.
Salty: LiF, NaF, NH4F (pungent), KBr (pungent), KI (spicy), disodium orthophosphate, ammonium bicarbonate, rubidium sulfate and perchlorate, etc.
Salty and astringent: zinc chloride.
Bitter: phosphine, BaCl2, SrCl2, potassium sulfite, calcium nitrate (cooling), ammonium sulfate (spicy), potassium bromate, soluble magnesium salts,
sodium tungstate, sodium vanadate, etc.
Don't particularily recommend munching on any of those, especially the heavy metal compounds.
I tried ammonium sulfate and didn't notice the bitterness much, all I can say is "it tastes like burning". 
Reminds of the time I tasted vanillin only to find out that burns the tongue too.
[Edited on 16-8-2009 by Formatik]
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entropy51
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| Quote: | In the “good old days,” chemists routinely tasted newly synthesized compounds and
documented their taste as part of the scientific record. This practice may explain why
so many prominent chemists suffered poor health during that time. In the 19th
century, the German chemist Justus von Liebig once declared, “A chemist with good
health must not be a good chemist” |
We have a number of very good chemists here!
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sergide
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Nobody here has tried pure ammonium nitrate? It's interesting, it's a very sour salty which kind of burns. But not unpleasant in small amounts.
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hissingnoise
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And you half-expect it to taste like snow (the white variety)?
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sergide
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Oh yeah that's another thing... it burns but it feels kind of cold, obviously it's used in snowpacks.
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blogfast25
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I'm a bit surprised no one has brought up ammonium chloride: aka salty liquorice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salty_liquorice
Some of these candies are actually covered in the stuff, yum yum!
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Everado E. Dinavo
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Cadmium gives you uncontrollable tremors and other really bad things.
I've read that in even relatively low concentrations (1ish% w/v), cyanide salts burn the mouth and esophagus on contact.
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chloric1
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sodium metabisulfite taste a little smokey and saline. It reminds me of forth of July with a salty twist. I am sure Sulfur dioxide is liberated on
contact with the moist tongue giving the characteristic acrid smoke taste to metabisulfite.
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not_important
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The 'saltiness' of an ion seems to be related to it's ionic radius and hydration sphere. Most metal salts can invoke sweetness, saltiness,
bitterness, and sourness, depending on their concentration. Sodium only presents sweetness and saltiness, lithium adds sourness that sometimes is
confused with bitterness. Some can also cause a metallic taste, alkaline salts seem to do this more.
As the ionic radius moves away from that of sodium, the perceived bitterness generally increases. In the alkali metals the series goes
Li>Na>K>Rb>Cs. Ammonium is an exception, it is saltier than sodium even though its radius is close to Rb; ammonium's taste
is complicated by the acidic nature of its salts, which adds a sour or sharp element to the taste. Lithium salts tend to be slightly alkaline and
often have a sour overtone as the concentration increases.
Ca(2+) is saltier than Na(1+), having nearly the same ionic radius 0.99 vs 1.02 Å, but becomes bitter as the concentration increases. The alkaline
earth series is Mg < Ca > Sr > Ba with the ends of the series being bitter over salty.
The halides become less salty and more bitter as the ionic radius increases. This is less pronounced than with the cations, KI is distinctly bitter
while NaI is less so, NaBr is mostly salty while KBr is mixed salty-bitter.
Oxi anions seem give a cooling sensation to a greater or lesser degree, NO3>ClO3>ClO4>SO4. Weaker acids, CO3(2-) and SO3(2-),
can give sour or bitter sensations as well, likely as their solutions are generally slightly alkaline.
A small amount of acidic nature is perceived more as 'sharpness' rather than 'sour'. Sharp or slightly bitter tastes combined with distinct saltiness
are often described as 'spicy'.
Be does taste very sweet in low concentrations, apparently it is sweeter than sucrose, going bitter as the concentration increases. Lead compounds
taste sweet as well, in both cases this is attributed to the size of the ion and hydration sphere. Some of the other metals' salts taste sweet at low
concentrations but rapidly turn bitter as the concentration is increased.
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chloric1
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Sounds reasonable not-important. An especially horrid taste is a mix of potassium and magnesium sulfates. The double salt does form pretty crystals.
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bquirky
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are any non hevey metal sulfates particularly toxic in tastable quantitys ?
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chloric1
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Not even sure if sulfates or sulfuric has any role in body chemistry of humans but AFAIK the sulfate ion itself is not appreciably toxic. Although
sulfuric acid mists are stated to be carcingenic on prolonged exposure. But in my opion, the pulmonary problems and possible COPD would be more
worrisom for me than some vague cancer possibility. The only sulfates that in my opinion are worth tasting are sodium sulfate and ammonium sulfate.
Sodium sulfate is so cooling and mild while ammonium sulfate is very salty without making you cringe. I might try lithium sulfate but it might taste
like magnesium sulfate(YUK!).
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Everado E. Dinavo
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Sulfate ion itself is non-toxic but it has laxative effects in appreciable doses. Depending on the salt, the cation might be toxic, but most of the
heavy metal sulfates are insoluble. I'm not sure what the effects of lithium ions on the body are, so I would be hesitant to try Li2SO4 at all.
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