Aluminum Sulfate

Aluminum Sulfate

Now you might be thinking "Why is there a picture of a sword and baking powder?", and you would be right to think this. These are two things that have nothing in common right? Wrong. They do have something in common! They both contain Aluminum.
I know, you don't believe me, but it's true. Now it's true that they have different types of Aluminum in them, baking powder has something called Aluminum Sulfate in it. Now I know that the name sounds pretty scary, but it's actually not that bad. It would take a lot of it to make you sick, but you definitely wouldn't want to get it in your eyes because it would burn really bad, and if you breathed it in you would start coughing pretty bad. Now although we eat Aluminum Sulfate if you eat too much of it you might start throwing up.
I know what you're thinking, where does Aluminum Sulfate come from? Do they just take a metal rod and just grind it up really small? The answer would be no, it actually comes from a rock called Kaolinite. They bake this rock at super high temperatures, wait for it to cool down, throw some acid on it, and then there you have it, Aluminum Sulfate. It can look a couple different ways when done, but its always white and usually has a glass like look to it. It can come in powders or crystals that dissolve really well in water, and it actually tastes sweet too.
Aluminum Sulfate is used for all sorts of different things. It can actually be used to clean water for drinking because it takes some of the dirt out of it. Sometimes people even put it in their garden to make their flowers change colour! They used to put it in deodorants but they don't anymore because it doesn't actually work that well. Last but not least they put it in baking powders. It's the reason that you're bread and cakes get all poofy when they're mixed with water and baked. It causes them to rise by creating gas through a chemical reaction.
So as you can see, the next time you see a picture of a sword and baking powder right next to one another, you'll be able to tell everyone how similar they actually are!