cryolite

cryolite or kryolite (both: krī`əlīt') [Gr.,=frost stone], mineral usually pure white or colorless but sometimes tinted in shades of pink, brown, or even black and having a luster like that of wax. Chemically, it is a double fluoride of sodium and aluminum, Na₃AlF₆. Its principal use is as a flux in the smelting of aluminum. It is used also as a source of soda, aluminum salts, fluorides, and hydrofluoric acid (by the action of sulfuric acid). It was discovered in Greenland in 1794 and occurs almost nowhere else. Cryolite has been produced synthetically.

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cryolite [′krī·ə‚līt]

(mineralogy)

Na₃AlF₆A white or colorless mineral that crystallizes in the monoclinic system but has a pseudocubic aspect; found in masses of waxy luster; hardness is 2.5 on Mohs scale, and specific gravity is 2.95-3.0; used chiefly as a flux in producing aluminum from bauxite and for making salts of sodium and aluminum and porcelaneous glass. Also known as Greenland spar; ice stone.