Tired of BAKING baking soda!!! Seeking Alternative

[Boomer]

OK, my test today

Yesterday I got the WS at Cub Foods. Today I opened the box and stuck my noise in the pour spout and I swear to God it has a very slight soap like smell. I took out 5 other buffers I still have, most with a similar appearance. l labeled all the jars and then shuffled them around for different times for 4 sniff tests and sniffed each one. Each time it ended up that the jar labeled WS smelled. The others all smelled the same, you could not tell which was which.

Upon mixing up 3 samples at different concentrations and one as high 1 tsp in a glass, all sample turned clear with no brownish hue and had a very withe foam on top similar to Snarkys FMC pics.

[Snarkys]

got any pics ? the brown color really seems to come out more in pictures yet the FMC stays clear in the pics.

Also the larger the jar the more it will come out because you are looking through more fluid. hence why the look down shots look so much worse than the side shots.

[Warner Marine]

I can tell you from experience it's not EASY to find high quality Sodium Carbonate in bulk, good luck!

[Snarkys]

Originally posted by Warner Marine
I can tell you from experience it's not EASY to find high quality Sodium Carbonate in bulk, good luck!

does that mean there is no A&H washing soda in here ? : )

[Warner Marine]

Originally posted by Snarkys
does that mean there is no A&H washing soda in here ? : )

not a single milligram of A&H Sodium Carbonate. I wish that Church and Dwight offered a suitable product because I already get 1 full pallet of their USP Bicarb per month... but they don't.

[Snarkys]

ya , seems they focus on the bicarbonate : (

genchem is the only one that I have found that has a food grade version.

[ROR]

The General Chemical soda ash did mix up with a very slight brown tinge to it, but there was no smell. I've been using it for 5 days now with no adverse effects.

Rob

[Boomer]

I do not have a camera. I tried jars of various sizes, one was a gallon. The same, all crystal clear, although some took longer due to concentration.

By the way, please try not make it sound like I do know what I'm doing. I'm quite of aware of what happens to water in containers of various sizes and glasses thickness vs liquid depth. I did not start doing this yesterday.

I view containers that are sitting on white paper and look through the length of them. The way it is suppose to be done to detect a color shift.


The General Chemical soda ash did mix up with a very slight brown tinge

Well, there yah go, so much for Gen Chem. It also has or can have a brown tinge to it.

In short these test don seem to be really proving anything.

There are number of places to buy food grade Sodium Carbonate in bulk, up to a ton, such as SISECAM Chemicals Group or Fujian Zhongmin Chemical. Unless, one is looking for a USA company. For us, there are even higher grades we could get from a number of chemical companies. Dealer/ wholesale is a little different issue, due to bulk they want.

[Snarkys]

Originally posted by Boomer

By the way, please try not make it sound like I do know what I'm doing. I'm quite of aware of what happens to water in containers of various sizes and glasses thickness vs liquid depth. I did not start doing this yesterday.

please forgive me that was not my intent. it's just that i had the brown results a few times now and and i talked to people in our local club who all had the same results, i was only trying to figure out any reason why you may have had different results, this was one of them , as well as the ability of the camera to pick it up .

In fact i highly respect your opinion and often include your name in my searches : )

[Boomer]

Ok sorry Snarkys. It has been another bad day for me and I always seem to beat on someone on a forum. I guess it was your turn


I forgot
I do not like going by cameras, they can do things to images. You learn this from years of trying to ID life forms. It is also why may ID books do not use pictures, they can be very discieving
.

[Snarkys]

Originally posted by ROR
The General Chemical soda ash did mix up with a very slight brown tinge to it, but there was no smell. I've been using it for 5 days now with no adverse effects.

Rob

well i finally got my food grade gen chem soda ash and had the same results.

This is a portion of an email I received today from OCI that may shed some light on the topic.

I’m glad you figured out that soda ash will work for you, as it is much less expensive than baking soda and has twice the neutralization capacity. In fact, by putting your baking soda in the oven to drive off the carbon dioxide, you are doing just the opposite of what Arm & Hammer does when they make it.



Na2CO3 + CO2 -> NaHCO3 This is how Arm & Hammer makes their sodium bicarbonate, and you are correct, they do use soda ash from General Chemical.



The “soapy” residue you see in your tanks is due to the types of anti-foams they use in their process. This can be seen in the total organic carbon measurements and if you compare OCI’s soda ash, you will find it containing much lower total organic carbon. I doubt you will see soapy residue or smell perfume when you try OCI material.

[jdieck]

So it makes sense, As A&H soda ash is marketed as a washing enhancer it will be logical that anyfoam agents be added but if they do so why the claim of 100% pure?

[jdieck]

By the way... for those using DOW Flake please note that Dow is switching the flake from Calcium Chloride Dihydrate to Calcium Chloride Monohydrate, as a result I would recommend at least testing it for ammonia before using the new DOW Flake X-tra. It also seems to have higher concentrations of the other stuff.

[Snarkys]

I don't know if this is true or not but a couple people have told me they stopped making the dow flake 2-3 years ago. there are obviously huge stockpiles of it still but it will run out eventually.

BTW Dow also sells a food grade Anhydrous which is about double the cost but it has the strict food grade standards that the tech grade doesn't.

I tested the food grade for phosphates with the hach kit and for ammonia with a variety of test kits, there was no detectable amounts of either. We tested by adding 100ppm , 500ppm and 1000ppm .

[Snarkys]

Originally posted by jdieck
So it makes sense, As A&H soda ash is marketed as a washing enhancer it will be logical that anyfoam agents be added but if they do so why the claim of 100% pure?

I will have to ask him but i think he meant it as gen chem uses anti-foams in their general process of creating soda ash not that A&H adds it later to their product.

I guess there are 4 producers of soda ash on this dried up lake bed. I'm not sure who the forth is but both OCI and FMC have recently told me that gen chems product consistently comes in a distant last when they do in house testing.

[Boomer]

As jd said , so much for their claimed 100 % pure. And you would think it would be or have to be on their MSDS.

So, the GenChem and Arm & Hammer are crap, at least most of time but they all still seem to smell. Foamy or brown may be an issue of what antifoaming agent they added or what batch it is. Many things that you eat and drink have antifoaming agents, like diet pops. Even some of the drugs you take have them. Some are mixtures of non-silicone organic defoamers, while others are active silicone polymers or various emulsifiers. Still others are things like Triethyl Citrate, Polyethylene Glycol and even phosphates. So who knows what they are adding. Even Isopropyl alcholo is a defoaming agent, the list is endless. Anything that will cause a shift in the surface tension could be called a defoamer. Even your flippin' arm in water is a defoamer .


You would think that GenChem would not add any antifoams and A & H does it on their own.

Did you ever get an answer back from A & H on the sample you sent in ?

[Snarkys]

I never got the envelope they send it in ..... Guess i'm not too worried about it now as i have no intention on using genchems soda ash or the washing soda .

A&H must further purify the sodium carbonate after adding the carbon dioxide because it doesn't have either of these issues and most if not all of their grades pass both the UPS and food codex. BTW i guess the reason A&H uses gen chem is because the factories are like 100 feet apart.

OCI is sending me some of their high purity grade soda ash to take a look at. passes USP and food codex's
http://www.ocichemical.com/webapp/oc...h%20Purity.pdf

[ROR]

I've been using the General Chemical food grade soda ash for a little over a month now and there's been no issues. Everything is healthy and growing well.

[Boomer]

A&H must further purify the sodium carbonate after adding the carbon dioxide because it doesn't have either of these issues

I think all is not being told or understood. It makes no sense for GenChem to add a antifoaming agent to a soda ash, only for A & H to remove it. What OCI seems to be saying is A & M buys soda ash from GenChem and then A & M makes their Baking Soda from it. I dont' buy that at all and think the guy does not know what he is talking about. GenGen could never supply them with that much soda ash to make baking soda and would be very expensive to do that.

The guy from OCI also knows little about the manufacturing of baking soda it appears. It is manufactured mostly by the Solvay Process by faaarrrrrrrr and is not just CO2 by a long shot. It is a reaction that involves, sodium chloride, ammonia, and carbon dioxide in water and has nothing to do with converting soda ash to baking soda. Some small quantities are manufactured as he said. Some is also made by using the sodium hydroxide method and another using limestone method.

Church & Dwight is the largest sodium bicarbonate producer in the world and has their own plants (2) for making it. They use the Solvay Process. If they used the other methods there would be no need to buy SA from GenChem, as the fist step is SA.

Solvay Process
NaCl + CO2 + NH3 + H2O ?¨ NaHCO3 + NH4Cl

Limestone Method
2 NaCl + CaCO3 ?¨ Na2CO3 + CaCl2

Sodium hydroxide Method
CO2 + 2NaOH ?¨ Na2CO3 + H2O

If we know take the SA from the LS or SOH methods

Conversion to SA ?¨ BS
Na2CO3 + CO2 + H2O ?¨ 2NaHCO3



When we heat up BS, it reverses

Conversion BS ?¨ SA
2 NaHCO3 ?¨ Na2CO3 + H2O + CO2


their high purity grade soda ash to take a look at

You are not going to get much purer than that at 99.8% That is the stuff to buy for sure. That is more like reagent grade/ACS and close to Ultra Pure, @ 99.99 %

[Snarkys]

I think all is not being told or understood.

I agree , most of the information I am getting is either from salesmen or tech support from these companies and they obviously have their own interests to protect.

I can not say definitively who makes A&H products but i can report that Genchem told me they supply A&H with the soda ash and OCI told me that A&H uses the gen chem soda ash to make bicarbonate. He also told me the plants are about 100 feet from each other. It is very possible/probable that this is just one of A&H's many sources for bicarbonate.

Seems these four companies mine the soda ash and then purify it.

this is a quote from OCI's website.
http://www.ocichemical.com/webapp/oc...ocisodaash.pdf

In 1863, Belgian chemist Ernest Solvay and his brother Alfred invented a new soda ash production process.
The Solvay process (also known as the ammonia - soda process) accounted for a majority of the soda ash
produced in America until 1974, when the more efficient and environmentally preferable process – the
refining of natural soda ash from rich, pure trona deposits in Wyoming – surpassed production from the
Solvay process, a trend that continues to take place in other parts of the world.

Soda ash occurs in many kinds of mineral waters and in
the mineral deposits of certain springs and lake brines. The
most commonly found sodium carbonate mineral – and the
richest source of soda ash – is trona, a mixture of hydrous
sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate, known chemically
as sodium sesqui - carbonate (Na2CO3NaHCO32H20).
The world's purest, largest and most accessible occurrence
of trona is located in the Green River Basin of southwestern
Wyoming. That's where OCI recovers the trona from which
its high quality soda ash is produced.
Wyoming's rich trona deposits are the residue of an
immense lake – known as Lake Gosiute – that covered the
southwestern part of the state 50 million years ago. Over
millions of years, Lake Gosiute expanded and contracted
in response to changes in the region's climate. During one
lengthy period, when the lake was predominantly saline,
it shrank to such an extent that large deposits of trona
and occasionally halite (sodium chloride) were left behind.
The trona at OCI's Green River complex is mined like coal.
Circular shafts sunk deep in the earth gain access to the
ore, as room and pillar mining are employed to prevent
caving and subsidence.
OCI’s trona beds are relatively shallow, about 850 feet
deep, compared to our competitors’ at as much as 2,000
feet. The difference in depth and conveying distance due
to two closely aligned trona beds (beds 24 and 25),
managed in conjunction with OCI’s continuous mining
methods, allow OCI to maintain a long-term competitive
advantage over other trona mines and their mining methods.

[Snarkys]

double post

[Snarkys]

Originally posted by Snarkys
I will have to ask him but i think he meant it as gen chem uses anti-foams in their general process of creating soda ash not that A&H adds it later to their product.

I will find out this out .

for now here is some reading about the process gen chem uses to make soda ash . They dissolve the trona into solution and then evaporate it into a slurry and then the slurry is sent into a centrifuge to remove the rest of the water. I am guessing an anti-foam could be considered useful in this process.

http://www.genchem.com/the-green-river-facility.asp

[Snarkys]

gah , double posts : (

[Boomer]

Yes, Trona is the mineral name for sodium carbonate/bicarbonate. Sodium carbonate has been mined for years. It was baking soda where I was saying uses Solvay, not SA, although it appears now that allot of the BS is also coming from Trona as a buy product from SA processing plants. I see that the largest Solvay plant in the USA for BS and SA was closed in the late 70's . Church & Dwight still makes much of their BS by the Solvay process but are slowly moving towards Trona.

I can not say definatively who makes A&H products

One needs to define the word "makes" Mining it and sell it as raw material does not mean "makes it".

I just said A & M makes their own Baking soda and have the two largest plants in the world. However, I'll tell you this, one of their plants is ; Church & Dwight Trona Processing & Manufacturing. It is in Wyoming, with around 175 employees They do not mine it. The other plants mine and process it. FMC is the largest with 845 employees. OCI, Gen and Solvay is about half that. Almost 90 % of the soda ash in the USA come now from Wyoming.


Church and Dwight ( Arm & Hammer)
“If there is something that has a higher level of quality and will run faster and takes less manpower hours, I am going to want to know about it,” says Paul Parker, plant manager at Church and Dwight’s Green River, WY, plant. Located near the world’s largest known Trona deposits (used to make sodium bicarbonate for soaps, baking soda, and laundry detergent), the Green River plant manufactures a range of process products from laundry detergent to cat litter. A 20-year Church and Dwight veteran, Parker has seen and implemented a range of innovations that have boosted plant productivity. For example, when he started at the company, palletizing was done manually. At least two workers lifted and stacked cases onto a pallet, while a third employee on a forklift would pick up the pallet, take it to get hand stretch-wrapped, then put it on a truck. Today, cases are sent directly to an automatic palletizer, which palletizes according to any pre-programmed pattern. They are then moved to another area and automatically shrink-wrapped.

“Now we have one person who can handle four packaging lines from the forklift standpoint, and put it on to trucks to be loaded to our customers,” says Parker. “We have gone from a scenario where you may have had six, eight or more people on a daily basis out there manually palletizing, stretch-wrapping and putting product away.” Thanks to the automatic palletizer, Church and Dwight now completes the same process with one or two employees.

Church and Dwight has also modernized and automated production. A computer system monitors pressures, temperatures and flows. It watches the plant continuously and controls inside specifications without need for an operator. Alarms will sound if the system senses a problem, informing the operator to return to the control room to diagnose the problem and fix it before it shuts the facility down. Parker believes computerization has drastically changed how plants are operated. “We’ve reduced labor because a computer can now monitor the process and make adjustments,” he says. “And because the machine can sense very small changes in the process, we improved raw-material conversions. The computer keeps the plant running at near-optimal operating conditions,” says Parker.


But productivity gains that reduce the number of employees required to do a task can pose a job-security issue and undermine unity. “The biggest obstacle to productivity and implementing productivity measures is the culture of the people in an organization,” says consultant Thomas. “Productivity improvements are people-related, especially if you have to teach them a new production system. It’s more than redesigning equipment or automating processes.” Getting people to work in teams, replacing batch and queue operations with continuous flow, and cross-training programs that help retain jobs all must be viewed from the perspective of culture change. “It’s teaching your entire workforce from the CEO right down to the shop floor a new way to do business,” says Thomas.


I'm quite familiar with the Green River Epoch of Wyoming it is pretty famous geologically. There are other Trona mines, beside Wyoming, such as the one in California that produces 10 % of the SA in the USA and others in Wyoming, like 8 of them but some are owned by the same companies. Solvay Chemicals, Inc is the other large company in Wyoming in the same area as OCI, Gen and FMC. All their mines are right next to each other. I have a map of them





John R. Dyni1, Stephen V. Wiig2 and W. D. Grundy1(1) Denver Federal Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Box 25406, MS939 Denver, Colorado 80225, USA
(2) U.S. Bureau of Land Management, P. O. Box 1869, 82902 Rock Springs, Wyoming, USA


Received: 23 January 1995 Revised: 9 June 1995 Accepted: 19 June 1995

Abstract Bedded trona (Na2CO3·NaHCO3·2H2O) in the lacustrine Green River Formation of Eocene age in the Green River Basin, southwest Wyoming, constitutes the largest known resource of natural sodium carbonate in the world. In this study, 116 gigatons (Gt) of trona ore are estimated to be present in 22 beds, ranging from 1.2 to 11 meters (m) in thickness. Of this total, 69 Gt of trona ore are estimated to be in beds containing less than 2 percent halite and 47 Gt in beds containing 2 or more percent halite. These 22 beds underlie areas of about 130 to more than 2,000 km2 at depths ranging from about 200 m to more than 900 m below the surface. The total resource of trona ore in the basin for which drilling information is available is estimated to be about 135 Gt.

Underveloped trona beds in the deeper southern part of the basin may be best developed by solution mining. Additional unevaluated sodium carbonate resources are present in disseminated shortite (Na2CO3·2CaCO3) in strata interbedded with the trona and in shallow sodium carbonate brines in the northeast part of the basin. Estimates of the shortite and brine resources were not made.

This Green River Formation of Eocene is in allot of places, it is just more famous for is outcropping and fossils in Wyoming.

There are still about 70 Solvay process plants in operation, although no new ones are being built as it is easier nowdays to extract it from trona. About 50 % of the SA comes from Asia



Solvay process

This is not just a single process, it is also how allot of Mag- chloride and Cal-chloride is made.


about the process gen chem uses to make soda ash

I know how it is basically processed, FMC was the leader and first in this business of Trona. They all have to go through this process, as you have to separate the sodium carbonate from the sodium bicarbonate.

This should keep your head spinning for awhile

[Snarkys]

who would have thought soda ash and baking soda would become so interesting : )