Sodium carbonate is an alkaline powder familiar to many generations of laundry workers as washing soda. However, this is a versatile substance with myriad other uses. Most notably, in this age of the skyscraper, it forms glass when heated then rapidly, cooled with sand and calcium carbonate. On a more grisly note, sodium carbonate is used in taxidermy to strip away flesh from bone. It is also a common food additive.
Traditionally, sodium carbonate was sourced from mining and from the ashes of plant matter (hence its other name, soda ash). Throughout the industrial era, efforts were made to find a synthetic process to produce the compound, which was in great demand for textiles and glass. The first attempt was made in 1790 by Frenchman Nicolas Leblanc (1742-1806), who found a way to convert salt into sodium carbonate using sulfuric acid, limestone, and coal. The method worked, and was used
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