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I recently looked up the solubility of sodium acetate trihydrate in water at 20°C and found surprisingly diverse values such as:
613g/l (GESTIS-Stoffdatenbank)
762g/l (TU Freiberg)
1250g/l (applichem, a vendor)
612g/l (German Wikipedia)
1233g/l (English Wikipedia)
I also found 408g/l somewhere but I can't find the source anymore.

As those values differ by a huge amount, I wanted to ask if someone knows how it comes to such a big difference.

Furthermore, I would be very grateful if someone could point out the correct value.

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  • $\begingroup$ I suspect it has to do with the ability of sodium acetate to easily form supersaturated solutions, making experimental determination of solubility tricky. -1 for not comparing Wikipedia articles in all the languages (just kidding:) ). $\endgroup$ – andselisk Jan 14 '18 at 12:54
  • $\begingroup$ The ability to form supersaturated solutions was my first assumption too but shouldn't it be possible to get more exact results than "Somewhere between 408 and 1250 g/l"? That's a pretty wide range. By the way, I also searched the Latin Wikipedia which (sadly) didn't have an article about sodium acetate. $\endgroup$ – GreenSmurf Jan 14 '18 at 13:02
  • $\begingroup$ @GreenSmurf I briefly checked some other resources and it seems like there is also a confusion between the the solubilities for the anhydrous substance and its hydrate. But yeah, this is indeed an interesting question. $\endgroup$ – andselisk Jan 14 '18 at 13:11
  • $\begingroup$ CRC Handbook 2017 lists same solubility values for sodium acetate and sodium acetate trihydrate: $\pu{50.4 g/100 g \ce{H2O}}$ at $\pu{25 ^\circ C}$. $\endgroup$ – andselisk Jan 14 '18 at 13:20
  • $\begingroup$ seems like mixture of two factors. 1) solubility of the salt changes with temperature rather significantly 2) some values actually are for anhydrous salt. $\endgroup$ – permeakra Jan 14 '18 at 21:02

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