Sodium borate question

[What About Bob]

I was about to buy a box of 20 mule team borax until I noticed the ingredient "sodium borate", not tetraborate.. Is this the same thing? Plus there was no mention of decahydrate, penta, etc. At times companies can change their formulas. Calgon being one example I can think of. Does 20 mule team still use tetraborate?

Thanks

 

[Don_ih]

I use that as borax in developers. Looking it up, sodium borate and sodium tetraborate seem to both be borax. I wouldn't worry about it.

They can't really change the ingredients in borax much, since they just dig it out of the ground.

 

[grahamp]

Ask the company: 20 Mule team Borax ingredients.

 

[What About Bob]

Thanks Don_ih and grahamp. I will pick some up tomorrow.

 

[bewilson]

You can ask that of seasoned chemists and they won't know the answer until they look it up. The chemistry of boron is truly bizzare. It has but three valence electrons and (almost) always manages to make four 2-electron bonds. Good question.