Sodium Metaborate

Adhesives

Sodium metaborate’s high alkalinity and the cross-linking reaction of borate anions with polyhydroxy groups makes it an excellent choice for starch- and dextrin-based adhesives. The adhesives it helps to produce are essential for use in corrugated boxes, paper bags, laminated paper boards, carton and case sealing, gummed tape, and tube winding.

Bleaching agent

Textiles, such as cotton, are bleached with hydrogen peroxide solutions. These solutions can be stabilized by using sodium metaborate. It also neutralizes the acidic oxidation by-products that form during bleaching. And, textile manufacturers can control textile sizing by incorporating sodium metaborate-produced starch adhesive material within the thread and binding all the fibers together to increase the thread’s tensile strength.

Cleaners

As an ingredient in hard-surface cleaners, sodium metaborate helps to remove oil, grease, rust, scale, and other particulates from metal or glass surfaces. The borate imparts alkaline conditions that enhance the product’s cleaning action. Sodium metaborate can also be incorporated into liquid laundry detergents for pH control, enzyme stabilization, and its builder properties.

And, more

Many proprietary water-treatment chemicals also include sodium metaborate to control pH and inhibit corrosion.

Such chemicals are used on heating systems and cooling towers as protection against corrosion. In automotive and industrial fluids, sodium metaborate can be used for anti-corrosion and reaction with acidic degradation products.

Borates are also being developed as an alkaline agent in several enhanced oil recover (EOR) processes, such as alkali-polymer and alkali-surfactant-polymer (ASP) flooding. Tertiary oil recovery from borate-based ASP core floods is comparable to that obtained with similar formulations that contain conventional alkalis and exhibit no injectivity problems in core flood trials.