Manganese(II) sulfate Manganese(II) sulfate Manganese(II) sulfate usually refers to the inorganic compound with the formula MnSO·HO. This pale pink deliquescent solid is a commercially significant manganese(II) salt. Approximately 260 thousand tonnes of manganese(II) sulfate were produced worldwide in 2005. It is the precursor to manganese metal and many other chemical compounds. Mn-deficient soil is remediated with this salt. Like many metal sulfates, manganese sulfate forms a variety of hydrates: monohydrate, tetrahydrate, pentahydrate, and heptahydrate. The monohydrate is most common. All of these salts dissolve to give faintly pink solutions of the aquo complex [Mn(HO)]. The pale pink colour of Mn(II) salts is
Manganese white magnesia alba (magnesium oxide), which provided the name magnesium for the free element when it was isolated much later. Several colorful oxides of manganese, for example manganese dioxide, are abundant in nature and have been used as pigments since the Stone Age. The cave paintings in Gargas that are 30,000 to 24,000 years old contain manganese pigments. Manganese compounds were used by Egyptian and Roman glassmakers, either to add to, or remove color from glass. Use as "glassmakers soap" continued through the Middle Ages until modern times and is evident in 14th-century glass from Venice. Because it was used