Manufacturing process
Sodium carbonate - Solvay ammonia process

The Solvay process uses common salt, NaCl, and limestone, CaCO₃, as raw materials. Ammonia NH₃ is involved in the manufacture of sodium carbonate, but cannot be considered a raw material since it is completely regenerated and recycled.

The process can be summarized by the global equation :

which, however, does not represent a practical chemical reaction.

Based on the observation that, when an aqueous solution saturated with NaCl and previously made basic was brought into contact with carbon dioxide (CO₂), sodium hydrogen carbonate could be obtained,...