Chemistry
Coral calcium is composed primarily of calcium carbonate (CaCO3), with small amounts of magnesium and other trace minerals. Calcium carbonate from coral is similar to calcium carbonate from other sources, with varying amounts of trace minerals. Much attention has been given to calcium carbonate's ability to change the pH (or alkalinity) of water-based solutions to which it is added. With respect to pH and alkalinity, the calcium component is less important than the carbonate component, which is chemically similar to the bicarbonate in baking soda. Coral calcium is a source of calcium, which is an essential mineral for human life. Coral has a chemical structure that is very similar to the composition of human bone and is sometimes used as material in bone grafts.
Read more about this topic: Coral Calcium
Famous quotes containing the word chemistry:
“If thought makes free, so does the moral sentiment. The mixtures of spiritual chemistry refuse to be analyzed.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Science with its retorts would have put me to sleep; it was the opportunity to be ignorant that I improved. It suggested to me that there was something to be seen if one had eyes. It made a believer of me more than before. I believed that the woods were not tenantless, but choke-full of honest spirits as good as myself any day,—not an empty chamber, in which chemistry was left to work alone, but an inhabited house,—and for a few moments I enjoyed fellowship with them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)