Uses:

Iodine can be used in many useful and helpful ways: Tincture of iodine is part of any emergency survival kit and used both for disinfecting wounds and to sanitize surface water for drinking. Some compounds of iodine are useful too such as silver iodide used mainly in photography and potassium iodide can be given to people in a nuclear disaster area to flush out radioactive materials in the body.In places where there is little iodine in the diet—usually where no seafood is eaten—lack of iodine causes the thyroid gland to goiter(see pictures). In some areas, this is now solved by adding small amounts of iodine to table salt in form of sodium iodide or potassium iodide, forming iodized salt.

(Return to TOC)