Production of Soda Ash
2 min readJun 11, 2022
Today, “natural soda ash” refined from the mineral trona is regarded as the standard for quality and purity and is also processed from sodium-carbonate-bearing brines.
There are basically three grades of soda ash that are produced, namely:
- Dense soda ash, which is an anhydrous substance. It forms an important industrial chemical, and is widely used in the manufacture of different products.
- Light soda ash, which is widely used as a pH regulator/ buffering agent in multiple industrial processes.
- Washing soda, which is also an anhydrous substance that’s produced by combining light soda ash along with additional molecules of water. It’s mostly used in soaps and washing detergents to improve their cleaning properties.
- A series of refining steps are required to produce soda ash from trona ore. First the raw ore from the mine is crushed and screened. The material is then fed to rotary calciners and heated. In this process, the trona decomposes to form crude soda ash, which is dissolved in water. The insoluble shales are separated from the solution by a combination of settling and filtration steps, and the resulting insoluble tailings are taken back into the mine as backfill. The soda ash solution is treated to remove organic materials yielding a high-purity saturated solution of sodium carbonate.
Where is it used?
Over half of all Soda Ash production is used in glass manufacturing, but it is also used in a wide range of other products, such as powdered detergents and soaps and rechargeable batteries, as well as being used extensively in metallurgical processes, and across the food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries.
- Glass Manufacturing
- Dry Powder Detergents
- Metallurgical Detergents
- Control PH in Water treatment
- Manufacturer of Paper Pulp
- Production of fiberglass
- Food Manufacturing (Baking Soda)
source: