Also known as: KCl, muriate of potash, salt substitute
Potassium Chloride
·By Croix
What is potassium chloride?
Potassium chloride (KCl) is the potassium analog of table salt — a 1:1 ionic compound of potassium and chloride. By mass it's about 52% elemental potassium, so 1 g of KCl provides ~524 mg of potassium. That's the highest elemental-K density of any common sports-nutrition powder, and roughly 1.5× the K density of potassium citrate.
KCl is the form used in LMNT Recharge, Tailwind Endurance Fuel, Precision Fuel & Hydration PH 1500, and (alongside potassium bicarbonate) Nuun Sport. The all-citrate brands — Skratch, DripDrop, Ultima — use potassium citrate instead, which has a slightly smoother taste at higher doses but is harder to source as a bulk powder.
How does it work in a sports drink?
Potassium sweat losses are small — roughly 5 mmol/L, or about 195 mg per liter of sweat. At a moderate sweat rate of 1 L/hr that's only ~200 mg of K lost per hour, far below daily intake from food. Body stores are large (~3,400 mg total body K in a 70 kg adult), so acute replacement during a single ride or run is not biochemically critical.
No randomized trial has shown that adding intra-exercise potassium improves performance over a sodium-only drink. The case for including it is precautionary and matching-the-brands: every commercial product except Maurten dosages some K, so DIY recipes that copy commercial products end up with K in the formula.
How do I use it at home?
Target 100–250 mg of potassium per 500–750 ml bottle to match the dose in most commercial drinks. That's ~0.2–0.5 g of KCl — a small pinch.
At ~0.4 g per bottle, KCl's bitter-metallic taste is essentially undetectable against the drink's sweetness and acid. Above ~1 g per bottle (≈500 mg K) the bitterness starts to show; that's well above what any standard recipe calls for.
Nutricost's 1 kg potassium chloride powder ($27 direct from nutricost.com) lasts effectively forever at sports-drink doses — 1 kg of KCl is over 2,000 bottle-doses at 0.4 g/bottle.
Dose & usage at a glance
- Elemental potassium
- ≈524 mg K per 1 g KCl
- Typical drink dose
- 0.2–0.5 g per bottle (100–250 mg K)
- Sweat K loss rate
- ~200 mg/hr at 1 L/hr sweat rate
- Bitterness threshold
- ~1 g per bottle (500+ mg K)
Where to buy it in bulk
We primarily recommend Nutricost-brand products (made in GMP-compliant, FDA-registered facilities, third-party tested), with NOW Foods or BulkSupplements as fallbacks for ingredients Nutricost doesn't stock. The list below shows every channel that carries the product — Nutricost direct, iHerb, and Amazon — sorted by unit price. Pack sizes vary across retailers, so the lowest $/g usually means the largest pack — pick whichever store and size fits your usage. Links are affiliate — the site earns a small commission at no extra cost to you. For ingredients none of the three brands carries (HBCD, table salt, sucrose) we describe the typical specialty- or grocery-store option and skip the affiliate link.
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
- Nutricost — Nutricost Potassium Chloride Powder (1 kg)1000g pack · $1.50 per 100 g$14.97Buy
- Amazon (Nutricost) — Nutricost Potassium Chloride Powder (2 lb) — via Amazon907g pack · $1.76 per 100 g$15.99Buy
- iHerb (Nutricost) — Nutricost Potassium Chloride, Unflavored, 2.2 lbs (1 kg) — via iHerb1000g pack · $2.40 per 100 g$23.95Buy
DIY teardowns that use potassium chloride
- DIY Tailwind Endurance: tune sodium to your own sweat rate
- DIY Tailwind High Carb: 90g of race fuel from grocery-store sugar
- DIY Skratch Sport Hydration: real-fruit flavor without the $1 scoop
3 teardowns— all walk through how potassium chloridefits into the specific commercial product's formulation.