Sulphamic acid is a white powder that is soluble in water and is a moderately strong acid. Sulphamic acid is a very efficient rust remover, descaling agent, and cleaning agent. It is an alternative for hydrochloric acid, which is more volatile and irritating. Aqueous solutions of sulphamic acid are less corrosive toward metals than other acids like hydrochloric acid. Sulphamic acid is a useful cleaning agent in the food industry, since it can rapidly dissolve hardness deposits without causing offensive odours. Sulphamic acid cleaner effectively removes rust, mineral/limescale deposits, mortar haze and grout. It is widely used in construction for cleaning cement, tile, ceramic, procelain, and masonry. Sulphamic acid cleaners can etch and lighten the colour of concrete.
Sulphamic acid is an efficient solubilizer for mineral scale deposits, which makes it effective for the removal of scale from boilers, coils, heat exchangers, cooling towers, and condensers. Sulphamic acid is a component of household cleaners and detergents, especially for the removal of limescale.
Sulphamic acid is an effective pH adjuster and acidifier, finding utility in various applications. It is commonly used to lower the pH of industrial cleaning solutions, swimming pool water, and water treatment processes. Sulphamic acid is used for the stabilization of chlorine in swimming pools and cooling towers, making the chlorine last longer.
The best kept secret is the primarily application of sulphamic acid for denoxing solutions. Denox removal is the harmful removal Nitrogen oxide (NOx) from a process, converting the harmful emissions of NOx to sulphuric acid. It is common in different mining applications and recovery of metals in plating baths and stripping of gold, silver, and copper from plating boards. It is used for gold recovery in mining and plating operations. Sulphamic acid is involved in the process of removing excess nitric acid from solutions in gold refining, which aids in the precipitation of gold. By converting nitric acid into sulphuric acid, sulphamic acid helps in the efficient recovery of gold from its ores. Another nugget of information; to neutralize 1 ml of 70% nitric acid, it takes about 1.5 gm of sulphamic acid dissolved in water. One liter of hot water at 80oC will dissolve about 470 gm of sulphamic acid. Ambient temperature in a room will dissolve about 150 g/l.
