Microcosmic salt (see infobox for other names) is a salt found in

urine Urine is a liquid by-product of metabolism in humans and in many other animals. Urine flows from the kidneys through the ureters to the urinary bladder. Urination results in urine being excretion, excreted from the body through the urethra. Cel ...

with the formula Na(NH₄)HPO₄. It is left behind in the residues after extracting the urea from dried urine crystals with alcohol. In the mineral form, microcosmic salt is called

stercorite Stercorite is the mineral form of microcosmic salt. The name comes from the Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Ti ...

. The first extraction of pure

phosphorus Phosphorus is a chemical element with the symbol P and atomic number 15. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms, white phosphorus and red phosphorus, but because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Ear ...

came from this salt, when

Hennig Brandt Hennig Brand (; c. 1630c. 1692 or c. 1710) was a German alchemist who lived and worked in Hamburg. In 1669, Brand accidentally discovered the chemical element phosphorus while searching for the "philosopher's stone", a substance which was believed ...

attempted to extract

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

from urine. Microcosmic salt is used in the laboratory as an essential ingredient of the

microcosmic salt bead test The bead test is a traditional part of qualitative inorganic analysis to test for the presence of certain metals. The oldest one is the borax bead test or blister test. It was introduced by Berzelius in 1812.''Materials Handbook: A Concise Desktop ...

for identification of metallic radicals on the basis of the color they produce in oxidising or reducing flame, in hot or cold condition. Microcosmic salts form a

tetrahydrate In chemistry, a hydrate is a substance that contains water or its constituent elements. The chemical state of the water varies widely between different classes of hydrates, some of which were so labeled before their chemical structure was underst ...

References

Sodium compounds Ammonium compounds Phosphates {{inorganic-compound-stub