noun

• A white alkaline compound with many commercial applications including the manufacture of soap and glass.

  Also called washing soda

  Chemical formula: Na₂CO₃

  ‘Holmes returned to his bench and quickly replaced the hydrochloric acid, sulphuric acid, and sodium carbonate to their proper storage locations.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Heating and agitation, after the introduction of sodium carbonate, precipitated calcium carbonate, and waste material settled.’
  • ‘At temperatures above 300°F, sodium bicarbonate decomposes into sodium carbonate (a more stable substance), water, and carbon dioxide.’
  • ‘If alkaline cleaners that contain sodium carbonate are used, then the cleaners themselves must be removed prior to welding.’
  • ‘Progress with dyestuffs, coal-tar compounds, and other organics accelerated after the adoption of the Solvay process, a commercial technology for the manufacture of sodium carbonate, in the 1880s.’
  • ‘The calcium reacted with sodium carbonate, precipitating as calcium carbonate.’
  • ‘This solution is neutralized with sodium carbonate.’
  • ‘Probably the best known compound among ancient civilizations was sodium carbonate, commonly known as soda.’
  • ‘Glass was first made from sand and sodium carbonate, found in dry lake beds around Alexandria, and later improved greatly by the addition of lime, calcium oxide.’
  • ‘If more alkalinity was needed, then borax, sodium metaborate, sodium carbonate, or even lye were used.’
  • ‘Late in the dry season of central Africa, blooms of red algae grow in expansive mats over a white crust of sodium carbonate on Tanzania's Lake Natron.’
  • ‘The carbonates are washed repeatedly with a dilute solution of sodium carbonate, thus removing any coloration from the precipitate.’
  • ‘Common fluxes are sodium carbonate (which produces ‘soda’ glass) and potassium carbonate (which produces ‘potash’ glass).’
  • ‘When falling into water this ash instantly cements as sodium carbonate and, in this alkaline environment, bone apatite and calcium carbonate fossils are relatively insoluble.’
  • ‘Ernest Rebecq Solvay invented the process of manufacturing sodium carbonate with ammoniac.’
  • ‘Diluting one part of it with 50 parts of a 0.5% solution of sodium carbonate in water makes a very good developer.’
  • ‘Of particular interest is the remarkable Oldoinyo Lengai volcano of northern Tanzania, in which carbonatitic lavas composed almost entirely of sodium carbonate can frequently be seen erupting.’
  • ‘Most of the sodium carbonate used in North America comes from large deposits of the mineral trona, a sodium carbonate / bicarbonate found in Wyoming.’
  • ‘I mix two teaspoons of sodium carbonate to a quart of water.’
  • ‘Fahey concluded that the pseudomorphs were derived when rainwater penetrating the near-surface layers leached out the sodium carbonate from the original shortite, leaving behind calcium carbonate.’