Commonly known as alum. It is used as a mordant in fabric dying and as a pre-wash for organic fabric cloth to enable maximum penetration of the fabric dyes. Used on its own or combined 1:1 with soda ash by volume dissolve mix in warm water and pre-wash fabric by hand or machine wash.
Also used as a preservative in dextrine or corn starch glue preparation in hot cooking process. Add a teaspoon of alum to 1L water over a slow fire and stir in 500g starch powder until mixture thickens into a glue. Similar use in paper mache as a preservative in the paper mash to avoid mash deterioration noted by a foul odour.
Alum is also a tanning chemical use in taxidermy as a tanning salt.
Advance ceramic use to sinter minerals in high firing composites. Used in foam lightweight ceramics to stabilise and improves compressive strength of the alumina ceramic bubbles. In ceramic glaze formulation as a suspension agent to enable dipping or paintaing more manageable.
