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Chemical Industrial Process

Sodium Carbonate (Na2CO3)

Sodium Carbonate (Na2CO3), also known as washing soda is an inorganic compound which
are white in colour and soluble in water. Sodium carbonate can be obtained using sodium
bicarbonate (NaHCO3) as a raw material. By simply applying heat to sodium bicarbonate (i.e.
thermal decomposition) which will evaporate its water content and turn the carbon to carbon
dioxide, leaving a dry sodium carbonate. The chemical reaction is as follow:

2 NaHCO3(s) → Na2CO3(s) + CO2(g) + H2O(g)

While the aforementioned method is relatively simple, it is not suitable for large, industrial
scale as NaHCO3 is not exactly that easy to get. In industrial process, the most common methodto
produce Na2CO3 is a process known as the “solvay process”. Solvay process, or ammonia-soda
process utilizes very common and inexpensive materials such as salt brine and limestone. The
overall process of the Solvay process is as such:

2 NaCl + CaCO3 → Na2CO3 + CaCl2

The overall process can be broken down further into four smaller processes as can be
seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Chemical reactions of the Solvay process (Schiff, 2006)

As can be seen, the first reaction is essentially passing the salt brine (NaCl) through two
towers. On the first, ammonia is bubbled into it and then unto the second, carbon dioxide. This
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will allow sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) to precipitate out of the reaction. Ammonia acts as a
buffer solution, rendering the solution basic, without it, HCl will come out as a by-product, making
the solution acidic, which will stop NaHCO3 from forming. The basic reaction is as follow:

NaCl + CO2 + NH3 + H2O → NaHCO3 + NH4Cl ····· (I)

The CO2 in the first reaction can be obtained from the second reaction and fourth reaction
which are the calcination of limestones and calcination of NaHCO3 respectively. The calcination
or thermal decomposition of limestone can be seen below:

CaCO3 → CO2 + CaO ····· (II)

After filtering the precipitated NaHCO3, the hot NH4Cl solution is reacted with the CaO
gotten from the second (II) reaction and the ammonia produced can be recycled back to the first
(I) reaction.

2 NH4Cl + CaO → 2 NH3 + CaCl2 + H2O ····· (III)

The last, but not the least important is the calcination process of NaHCO3 to Na2CO3,
producing water and carbon dioxide as by-products.

2 NaHCO3 → Na2CO3 + H2O + CO2 ····· (IV)

As have mentioned above that the CO2 can be recovered for the first reaction and with
proper planning and design, almost all of the ammonia can be reclaimed, leaving only salt,
limestone and thermal energy as the main resources for Solvay process leaving calcium chloride
as a by-product, which can be sold as road salt.
A modified solvay process, developed by a Chinese chemist Hou, eliminates CaCl2 as a
by-product producing NH4Cl instead, which has more commercial value than that of CaCl2. Rather
than treating the rest of the solution with lime, carbon dioxide and ammonia are siphoned into the
solution, at that point sodium chloride is added until it saturates at 40 °C. Next, the solution is
cooled to 10 °C. Ammonium chloride forms and is separated by filtration, and the filtrate is reused
to create more sodium carbonate.
The quality of produced Na2CO3 can be checked by the colour of the solution when 1.0
gram of the sample is dissolved in 5 ml of water. The purity of the sample can also be obtained
through the carbonate titration analysis with 0.1 or 0.2 N of HCl.
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References:
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https://www.essentialchemicalindustry.org/chemicals/sodium-carbonate.html
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