“Sulfate” or “Sulphate”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 6 prefer “sulfate” and 6 prefer “sulphate”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	sulfate	sulphate	Preference
United States	96	4	“sulfate”
United Kingdom	44	56	“sulphate”
India	15	85	“sulphate”
Philippines	95	5	“sulfate”
Canada	81	19	“sulfate”
Australia	61	39	“sulfate”
Liberia	100	0	“sulfate”
Ireland	43	57	“sulphate”
New Zealand	55	45	“sulfate”
Jamaica	42	58	“sulphate”
Trinidad & Tobago	42	58	“sulphate”
Guyana	43	57	“sulphate”

Usage

Examples in context

Real sentences for each spelling. Hover an example to copy it.

“sulfate”

…and conjugated estrogens like equilin sulfate.
…the oxalate at or the sulfate in air.
…its name, Desulfobulbus propionicus reduces sulfate, sulfite, and thiosulfate to hydrogen…
Intravenous magnesium sulfate (MgSO4) can be given in…
Calcium sulfate (anhydrite, hemihydrate, gypsum);
…source such as gypsum (calcium sulfate) or egg yolk.
…catalyst of palladium on barium sulfate, whose small surface area prevents
…company began to produce magnesium sulfate in order to reduce the
…contain potassium chloride, while potassium sulfate is used for chloride-sensitive crops…
14% K2O as from sulfate of potash

“sulphate”

…a paper on the copper sulphate test for arsenic poisoning, delivered…
…concentrations", for example, sodium, chloride, sulphate, bicarbonate, and ammonia.
…melting temperature and 10% dextran sulphate to increase the effective probe…
…the two solutions of copper sulphate and zinc sulphate were in…
…global resources including copper, copper sulphate, gold, silver, nickel, nickel sulphate,…
…put 20 tonnes of aluminium sulphate in the wrong tank.
…HIC, conditioning involves adding ammonium sulphate to the sample to match…
…(Na) and the absence of sulphate or "bitter salt" known as…
The closely related sulphate pulp process was introduced in…
…refined lead, sulphuric acid, nickel sulphate, and platinum-palladium concentrate.

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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