The Physical and Chemical Properties of Salt Manufactured by New Process with Brine Produced in Korean Salt-farms

Solar salt is manufactured naturally, and therefore, it contains insoluble substances such as sandy compounds. This study is performed in order to effectively produce clean sea salt by removing the impurities in sea salt through filtration and evaporation in a vacuum condition. Brine was concentrated and crystallized at 90°C by a rotary vacuum evaporator, which was then recovered as salt crystals by filtration, and then the salt was dehydrated. Manufacturing yields were determined by the amount of water evaporation. Brine was concentrated to 40%, 50% and 60% of the initial volume of brine and manufactured salt were designated as 40S, 50S and 60S, respectively. The salt produced by this process is called ESBS (evaporated salt with brine from salt-farm). The yield of 40S, 50S and 60S were 7.22%, 10.79% and 15.06%, respectively. The NaCl concentration of 40S and 50S were 90.38% and 91.16%, respectively. From a sensory evaluation analysis, the most tasty salt was 40S and the bitter salt was 60S. The average contents of sand compound and insoluble substances in ESBS were 0.001∼0.012% and 0.067∼0.12%, respectively. The mineral compositions, such as Na, Mg, K, and Ca of 40S and 50S were similar with those of the natural solar salt. In solubility tests, the solubility (g of salt/100 mL H2O/sec) of 40S, 50S, and 60S was 0.69, 0.70, and 0.69, respectively. On the other hand, the solubility of natural solar salt was 0.47. By comparing the water reabsorption rate analysis results, water reabsorption rate of 40S and 50S was about 3 to 5 times lower than that of the solar salt. In the aspects of physical and chemical properties, such as minerals, impurities, solubility and moisture re-absorption rate, salts developed in this study are judged to be better than that of the general solar salt.