Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1916 — SODA AND SALT CLOSELY RELATED [ARTICLE]

SODA AND SALT CLOSELY RELATED

BOTH ARE MOST NECESSARY OF KITCHEN CABINET SUPPLIES —ONE DEPENDS ON OTHER. BRINE IS PUMPED TWENTY MILES National Museum Shows New York Soda Plant and Salt Wells - ——ln Operation. Washington, D. C. —It is a curious fact that two of the most common household essentials, salt and baking powder, are very closely related; the latter depending upon the former for it existence. In other words, without salt, or sodium chloride, as it is technically termed, we could not manufacture baking powder, sodium bicarbonate and would be sans biscuit, bread, cakes, etc. There are many and aiverse uses, however, for sodium compounds other than the common use in baking; some of them being soda water, soap and soap powders, quinine,, oxalic acid, starch, paper, paint, glass, alum and in silk bleaching,, cleaning and treating skins and wool, in dynamite and textiles, as well as in many chemical compounds. An especially model In the older building for the National Museum at Washington, with brooks of running water, wooded hills and a well-built town, shows graphically the soda plant, the salt wells In operation, and the surrounding country of a well known soda manufacturing establishment in New York state. This interesting model in the division of mineral technology shows in reduced scale the method of obtaining salt for use in making soda from beds deep within the earth without mining, and illustrates the conveyance of the same in the form of brine to the soda p'aflt over 20 miles away.

A narrojv strip of land is shown in plan and profile, from the billy region of the Tully Lakes, south of Solvay, N. Y., to the flat country near Solway including the outlying portions of Syracuse, N. Y. The model is unique in that it is not only topographically correct, with the elevations and depressions carefully worked out, but has the manufacturing plant, the salt wells, tanks, etc., and roads, houses and trees together with brooks and lakes of real water. The salt wells lying at a depth of 1,200 feet below the surface of the hills are shown, with the pipes which feed the tanks and reservoirs below in the town of Solvay. Sections of Lake Onondaga, and tfcie Erie canal are also to be seen. Bearing in mind the fact that salt is soluble in water, the engineers of the concern at Solvay evolved the scheme of asing the abundant supply of pure water furnished by the numerous lakes in the region of Tully, N. Y., by forcing it into the deep lying salt beds and drawing it off in the form of salt water. This was accomplished by sinking two pipes, one within the other, -sending the fresh water from the lakes down the larger pipe and sucking up the salt water through the inner pipe. The salt water or brine is stored in concrete reservoirs, constructed near at hand, from where it is connected to the plant-at Solvay, 21 miles away, by a pipe line, and may be drawn olf as desired.

This method of securing the salt Is one of the modern devices employed by man to overcome the great defenses of nature against his attack, and saves much labor and expense, for the salt is obtained directly in the form required for the process. The process used here for making baking soda with ammonia is known as the Solvay process, invented in 1863 by Ernest Solvay of Brussels. The many complicated chemical operations necessary in this system of man. ufacturer will be but' briefly mentioned. Three principal ingredients are used —salt, which is obtained in solution from the salt beds; ammonia, which is secured as a byproduct from the coke ovens operated both for the coke and gases, among which is the ammonia, and lime, which is obtained by burning limestone secured from Jamesville, a near-by town. In simplest terms, this process consists of treating the brine solution with ammonia obtained from the coke ovens. When thoroughly saturated with ammonia gas, the brine is forced under pressure into tanks containing carbon dioxide, vPhich in turn is obtained when limestone is converted into lime. The resultant products obtained from tljese reactions are bicarbonate of soda, and ammonia chloride. By a further treatment the carbon dioxide 4s liberated and used over again, while any ammonia given off is condensed add returned to the tanks. The sodium bicarbonate thus formed' is heated in rotary dryers and thus converted into sodium carbonate which is the soda ash of trade. Some of the nodium carbonate is dissolved in water and boiled with milk of lime; this converts the sodium carbonate into caustic soda, another well-known compound. Another part of the sotflum carbonate B dissolved tn water, recarbonated and then dried to convert it into refined bicarbonate of soda, known commercially as baking soda. ' ""7"

The ammonia soda plant at Sofvajr consumes as much water in the processes of manufacturing and for the production of steam, as is used by a city of 200,000 people. This water is pumped from Onondaga Lake, and most of it returns there again with the waste from the plant. The exhibition model at the museum is accompanied by number of photographs which. depict.. actual scenes in the region traversed by the model. A series of raw and finished products in large jars offers a comprehensive representation of the steps In the process illustrated, and shows the different Ingredients employed. Altogether this exhibition demonstrates a new step In museum exhibition tending to interest all ages and those with a nontechnical as well as a technical trend of mind.