How is salt produced?
Many food products can be easily foundreplacement. Even bread can be replaced. Without salt, you can not do. It is the only product that simply has nothing to replace. A person can not live without salt. The results of many studies have shown that without salt in the human body, digestion stops and there is no metabolism. Any living creature dies if it does not receive the salt in the required quantities.
Fortunately, our nature has a huge reservetable salt (halite). For example, the countries of the former Soviet Union include more than a hundred deposits, in which there are more than one hundred billion tons of salt. And natural resources are even greater.
Extraction of salt
So, let's figure out how to get salt and howthis process occurs. The extraction of salt has always been considered difficult work. Back in the beginning of the last century it was done manually. But in the twenties, shovels, wheelbarrows and picks replaced coal cutters, salt combines and excavators. To date, there are several ways to extract salt:
- basin
- in the salt mine
- vacuum
- mine
Today they are using the basin method, butnow it is mechanized for the most part. In autumn, a relatively small pond is dug out by the sea, which is filled with sea water through the ditch. Water remains in the ditch until clay, stones and sand settle. After that, she descends into the next pool, and in the spring - into another one. All this time, water evaporates and the concentration of salt increases every day. At the end of the summer, the last pool has a three-layer layer of salt, which is then removed (scraped) with the help of salt harvesters. The extracted salt is placed in specially designed mounds, the height of which reaches 10-15 meters. Rain water flushes these mounds, taking out all unnecessary chemical compounds.
One of the places where salt is extracted in saltmines, is Lake Baskunchak. In this case, salt-mining combines are used. Within an hour, such a combine can extract, and also load approximately three hundred tons of salt into the cars. Its appearance looks like a two-story car. He moves on rails, which are laid directly on the salt layer. At the top there is a control panel, and below is a powerful milling cutter (baking powder of dense salt). Then the salt is mixed with water and the resulting mixture is sent to special chambers. In them, crystals of salt are separated from the water, and then washed and immersed in railway wagons, approaching the combine on the established rails. And from here the salt is sent to the mill.
Mining is used to extract salt that is inthe depths of our Earth. It appeared there a very long time and eventually became solid (stone) and monolithic. But as a result of high temperatures and pressure, the salt becomes a plastic, supple material. During heating, it expands by an order of magnitude stronger than other surrounding rocks and eventually rises to the top. In the process of "surfacing" to the surface of the earth, these huge salt massifs bend and push apart the layers that occur along their path. Thus, a large mountain of salt is formed underground. This mountain is called a salt dome. They can be found in the North-German and Dnieper-Donetsk basins, in the Caspian region, etc. Many salt mines use powerful electric excavators, coal cutters, self-propelled drilling rigs, mining combines (the most reliable mining equipment) and electric locomotives.
Our best edible salt "Extra" is extracted fromsowners, using a vacuum method. In the thickness of our salt, which lies under the ground, inject fresh water with wells. As a result, the salt dissolves, and salt brine comes up. First, it is cleaned, and then the brine is sent to the chambers in which vacuum is created (reduced pressure). If the pressure is much lower than the atmospheric pressure, then the brine begins to boil and at a low temperature. Then it evaporates, and the crystals of salt begin to precipitate. Then, using a centrifuge, they are separated from the water. And thus, they extract salt, which has a fine grinding, known to us as "Extra".
Over 25 million years ago, the mostknown and large salt deposits. These zones are located in the Caspian lowland, in the Urals and in the Donbass region. For example, salt beds, whose thickness is 50 meters, can be found at the Artemovskoye deposit (Donbass). It is in this zone that the salt mine is one of the largest in the world. And after the seizure of our salt, high and spacious caves begin to form under the earth, which very much resemble fairy-tale crystal halls.
The extraction of salt in Russia, and not only in it, iscapacious and painstaking process. From the quantity and quality we extract salt, the life of all living organisms on the Earth depends. Therefore, you need to appreciate this product and treat it with care.
