Talk:Solvay process

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[edit] Relationship to soda ash article

There is substantial duplication between material in this article and in the article on "soda ash." I would think that the quite good text on the uses of soda ash in the present article (on the Solvay process) should be merged into the soda ash article and removed from this one. Comments? Anyone game to do the merger?EAS 13:23, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Overall Equation

I was just wondering if anyone could put in an overall equation of the process in the first section? Easy and quick job that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks heaps.

OK. I made an effort to clarify this section. Please indicate if this is better, or make a stab yourself!EAS 02:03, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Useful links

[edit] Discrepancy

Forgive me if this is just a stupid mistake of mine, but on the wiki page for Sodium Carbonate, under the Hou process is: "Hou's Process is the most common current process in the world to produce sodium carbonate.", which goes against the claim in the introduction of this page that 3/4ths of the world's supply is made via the Solvay process. I don't know enough to know which to correct, but it seems some editing is in order. Cruorem 21:15, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I would consider Huo's process to be a variant of the Solvay process. Both use the lower solubility of sodium bicarbonate compared to that of sodium chloride to precipitate the bicarbonate. The remaining part of the cycle is varied according to what byproduct you want to get. In earlier times, ammonia was expensive, so there was a motive to recycle it. Today it is less expensive, so selling the ammonium chloride as fertilizer is an economically viable way to do it. BTW the sodium carbonate article is in dire need of references to verify the facts of both processes. Karl Hahn (T) (C) 21:41, 1 November 2007 (UTC)