Solvay process (ammonia-soda)
Proceso Solvay (carbonato sódico con amoniaco)
- Date
- 1861-1865 · confidence high
- Place
- Couillet (Charleroi), Belgium
- Credited to
- Ernest Solvay (with Alfred Solvay)
- People
- 👤 Ernest Solvay1838–1922
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
The manufacture of sodium carbonate from salt, limestone and recycled ammonia, cheaper and cleaner than the Leblanc process, which produced toxic acidic waste. The first factory opened at Couillet (1863-1865).
The chemical principle was described by Fresnel (1811) and by Dyar and Hemming (1838) without achieving an industrial process; Solvay made it viable with his carbonation tower.
What it led to
- Cheap glass, soap and paper
- The decline of the Leblanc process and its pollution
- The Solvay multinational and the Solvay Physics Conferences (1911)
- Continental industrial chemistry versus British
Built on
- Leblanc process (soda ash)1791
- Leblanc process (1791)
- Ammonia from coal gas
- Gas absorption tower
Made possible
- Hou's process (combined soda and ammonium chloride)1941-1943
- Industrial flat glass
- Detergents
- Chlor-alkali industry